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Kiran Sethi: קיראן ביר סתי מלמדת ילדים לקחת אחריות

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קיראן ביר סתי מציגה את ריברסייד - בית הספר המהפכני שהקימה בהודו, בו ילדים לומדים את השיעור החשוב ביותר בחיים: "אני יכול". ראו כיצד תלמידיה לוקחים עניינים מקומיים לידיהם, מובילים צעירים אחרים, ואף מקנים להוריהם השכלה.

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אתר בית הספר

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אתר בית הספר

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בית הספר הירוק בדרום

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בית הספר הירוק בדרום אפריקה

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The Green Schools are a global network of schools in Bali, New Zealand and South Africa, committed to making our world sustainable through education

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חמש דקות איך לומדים 

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חמש דקות איך לומדים בבית הספר הירוק

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Green School Bali: School of the Future, Now

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My Green School Dream : John Hardy at TEDxTaipei 2012

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Anton Oberländer is a persuasive speaker. Last year, when he and a group of friends were short of cash for a camping trip to Cornwall, he managed to talk Germany's national rail operator into handing them some free tickets. So impressed was the management with his chutzpah that they invited him back to give a motivational speech to 200 of their employees.

Anton, it should be pointed out, is 14 years old.

The Berlin teenager's self-confidence is largely the product of a unique educational institution that has turned the conventions of traditional teaching radically upside down. At Oberländer's school, there are no grades until students turn 15, no timetables and no lecture-style instructions. The pupils decide which subjects they want to study for each lesson and when they want to take an exam.

The school's syllabus reads like any helicopter parent 's nightmare. Set subjects are limited to maths, German, English and social studies, supplemented by more abstract courses such as "responsibility" and "challenge". For challenge, students aged 12 to 14 are given €150 (£115) and sent on an adventure that they have to plan entirely by themselves. Some go kayaking; others work on a farm. Anton went trekking along England's south coast.

The philosophy behind these innovations is simple: as the requirements of the labour market are changing, and smartphones and the internet are transforming the ways in which young people process information, the school's headteacher, Margret Rasfeld, argues, the most important skill a school can pass down to its students is the ability to motivate themselves.

"Look at three or four year olds - they are all full of self-confidence," Rasfeld says. "Often, children can't wait to start school. But frustratingly, most schools then somehow manage to untrain that confidence."

The Evangelical School Berlin Centre (ESBC) is trying to do nothing less than "reinvent what a school is", she says. "The mission of a progressive school should be to prepare young people to cope with change, or better still, to make them look forward to change. In the 21st century, schools should see it as their job to develop strong personalities."

Making students listen to a teacher for 45 minutes and punishing them for collaborating on an exercise, Rasfeld says, was not only out of sync with the requirements of the modern world of work, but counterproductive. "Nothing motivates students more than when they discover the meaning behind a subject of their own accord."

Students at her school are encouraged to think up other ways to prove their acquired skills, such as coding a computer game instead of sitting a maths exam. Oberländer, who had never been away from home for three weeks until he embarked on his challenge in Cornwall, said he learned more English on his trip than he had in several years of learning the language at school.

Germany's federalised education structure, in which each of the 16 states plans its own education system, has traditionally allowed "free learning" models to flourish. Yet unlike Sudbury, Montessori or Steiner schools, Rasfeld's institution tries to embed student self-determination within a relatively strict system of rules. Students who dawdle during lessons have to come into school on Saturday morning to catch up, a punishment known as "silentium". "The more freedom you have, the more structure you need," says Rasfeld.

The main reason why the ESBC is gaining a reputation as Germany's most exciting school is that its experimental philosophy has managed to deliver impressive results. Year after year, Rasfeld's institution ends up with the best grades among Berlin's gesamtschulen, or comprehensive schools, which combine all three school forms of Germany's tertiary system. Last year's school leavers achieved an average grade of 2.0, the equivalent of a straight B - even though 40% of the year had been advised not to continue to abitur, the German equivalent of A-levels, before they joined the school. Having opened in 2007 with just 16 students, the school now operates at full capacity, with 500 pupils and long waiting lists for new applicants.

Given its word-of-mouth success, it is little wonder that there have been calls for Rasfeld's approach to go nationwide. Yet some educational experts question whether the school's methods can easily be exported: in Berlin, they say, the school can draw the most promising applicants from well-off and progressive families. Rasfeld rejects such criticisms, insisting that the school aims for a heterogenous mix of students from different backgrounds. While a cross adorns the assembly hall and each school day starts with worship, only one-third of current pupils are baptised. Thirty per cent of students have a migrant background and 7% are from households where no German is spoken.

Even though the ESBC is one of Germany's 5,000 private schools, fees are means tested and relatively low compared with those common in Britain, at between €720 and €6,636 a year. About 5% of students are exempt from fees.

However, even Rasfeld admits that finding teachers able to adjust to the school's learning methods can be harder than getting students to do the same.

Aged 65 and due to retire in July, Rasfeld still has ambitious plans. A four-person "education innovation lab" based at the school has been developing teaching materials for schools that want to follow the ESBC's lead. About 40 schools in Germany are in the process of adopting some or all of Rasfeld's methods. One in Berlin's Weissensee district recently let a student trek across the Alps for a challenge project. "Things are only getting started," says Rasfeld.

"In education, you can only create change from the bottom - if the orders come from the top, schools will resist. Ministries are like giant oil tankers: it takes a long time to turn them around. What we need is lots of little speedboats to show you can do things differently."
Topics

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No grades, no timetable: Berlin school turns teaching upside down

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Anton Oberländer is a persuasive speaker. Last year, when he and a group of friends were short of cash for a camping trip to Cornwall, he managed to talk Germany's national rail operator into handing them some free tickets.

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The Green Schools are a global network of schools in Bali, New Zealand and South Africa, committed to making our world sustainable through education

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Green School Bali is a private and international pre-kindergarten to high school located along the Ayung River near Ubud, Bali, Indonesia.

The school was founded by John and Cynthia Hardy. The Hardys reportedly conceived of Green School in 2006 after reading Alan Wagstaff's Three Springs concept document for an educational village community. The school's bamboo bridge, spanning 22 meters across the Ayung River, was completed in November 2006. Green School opened in September 2008 with 90 students and a tailor-made campus that emerged from the jungle and rice fields. Since then it has grown to approximately 400 students.

Despite early intentions to live off the grid, as of 2014 the school's 70+ buildings are not off the grid, but use some renewable energy sources, including micro-hydro power from a "hydroelectric vortex", and solar power.

The campus is designed around the principles of an organic permaculture system, and the students cultivate an organic garden as part of their learning activities. Buildings are constructed primarily from renewable resources including bamboo, local grass and traditional mud walls. The campus has been reported as an example of the large-scale building potential of bamboo architecture, especially "The Heart of the School" - a 60-meter long, stilt-structure constructed with 2500 bamboo poles. The school also utilizes renewable building materials for some of its other needs, although senior students are required to use laptops.

In January 2015, Green School high school students launched the Bio Bus, a student-led social enterprise to provide sustainable transport services to Green School students, teachers and community. This initiative looked at solving the transportation system to the rural setting of Green School, which mainly consisted of private cars, carpooling and motorbikes. The Bio Bus now has four 18-seater buses that run purely on biodiesel (B100) made from used cooking oil.

The school consists of four learning neighborhoods - Early Years, Primary School, Middle School & High School. Special programmes include Green Studies, environmental science, entrepreneurial learning, and the creative arts.

Kul Kul Connection

Founded in 2016, the Kul Kul Connection is a community program, hosted after school for more than 210 local students. The main focus of the program is the English language and sustainability.

Board of directors & Governance

In 2015, Green School launched a Strategic Review process to include members of the faculty, parents, local community and board of directors in the spirit of the progressiveness of the school. To meet this evolution, the governance structure of Green School was updated and made public. Its three-level governance structure is based on the Indonesian legal requirements. There are currently Trustees, a Board of Management - a cross-stakeholder body that governs the School operationally to provide the school's holistic education experience, and implement its strategic plan. School Board Members have included Roger J. Hamilton David Heffernan. Ronald Stones, Nadya Hutagalung, Mickey Ackerman, Chris Saye, Derek Montgomery and Theo Bakker.

Green School was awarded the 2012 "Greenest School on Earth" award by the Center for Green Schools at the U.S. Green Building Council. The school was a finalist for the 2010 Aga Khan Award for Architecture.

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Green School Bali is a private and international pre-kindergarten to high school located along the Ayung River near Ubud, Bali, Indonesia. The school was founded by John and Cynthia Hardy. The Hardys reportedly conceived of Green School in 2006 after reading Alan Wagstaff's Three Springs concept document for an educational village community.

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אתר בית הספר 42 בסיליקון ןוואלי

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אתר בית הספר 42 בסיליקון ןוואלי

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Zero Tuition.

Pay nothing before, pay nothing after. 42 Silicon Valley is 100% free, even after you get a job.

Zero Teachers.

We believe the best way to learn is by learning with your peers. Our students come from all different backgrounds - they will be mentors, they will be mentored, but ultimately everyone learns from each other.

Zero Classes.

Our curriculum allows students to freely explore the different areas of programming, and help them find what they're passionate about.

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Free Software Engineering School | 42 Silicon Valley

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Pay nothing before, pay nothing after. 42 Silicon Valley is 100% free, even after you get a job. We believe the best way to learn is by learning with your peers. Our students come from all different backgrounds - they will be mentors, they will be mentored, but ultimately everyone learns from each other.

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סוגאטה מיטרה - בית ס

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סוגאטה מיטרה - בית ספר בענן

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My wish is to help design the future of learning by supporting children all over the world to tap into their innate sense of wonder. Help me build the School in the Cloud, a learning lab in India, where children can embark on intellectual adventures by engaging and connecting with information and mentoring online. I also invite you, wherever you are, to create your own miniature child-driven learning environments and share your discoveries.

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Sugata Mitra creates a School in the Cloud

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My wish is to help design the future of learning by supporting children all over the world to tap into their innate sense of wonder. Help me build the School in the Cloud, a learning lab in India, where children can embark on intellectual adventures by engaging and connecting with information and mentoring online.

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אתר  בית הספר

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אתר  בית הספר

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Omnia is promoting inclusion, skills and well-being of citizens and boosting the vitality of municipalities, communities and enterprises of the region. Omnia is a large and modern provider of education that offers a wide range of services with a focus on supporting lifelong learning. Our actions are guided by the changing needs of the future.

We offer vocational and general upper secondary education, youth workshops, professional Diplomas and liberal adult educations as well as corporate training and professional courses and recruitment support. Omnia has established partnerships with up to 3000 companies and participates strongly in the region's services for business and commerce.

"Omnia is a forerunner that offers a wide range of services with a focus on supporting lifelong learning. One of the strategic priorities is to use education as a means to fight against social exclusion and to prevent discrimination. Omnia promotes social inclusion and critical thinking as well as social and cultural diversity."

- Sampo Suihko, General Director

Omnia is a multisector education provider and regional development center. We offer innovative learning environments and beneficial partnerships both in national and international education development projects.

Internationally, we specialise in capacity building projects within the K-12 and vocational education and training sectors as well as mobility. We host and send abroad hundreds of experts and students yearly in mobility projects (Erasmus+, Nordplus, networks outside Europe).

Read our brochure Omnia - Your Top Partner in Vocational Education and Training
Due to the COVID-19 situation we do not organise international visits nor mobilities until the 31st of March, 2021.
Study in English

In Omnia you can study vocational qualifications in English and take part in liberal education hobby courses taught in English.
These vocational qualifications are appropriate for those, who wish to study in English. However, basic command of Finnish is also necessary in order to be able to work in Finland. Tuition languages are English and Finnish.

Read more about vocational qualifications at Omnia and browse Liberal education courses.

Omnia Skills Centre

Our Skills Centre helps immigrants in Espoo to access work and education. Omnia Skills Centre

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Omnia is promoting inclusion, skills and well-being of citizens and boosting the vitality of municipalities, communities and enterprises of the region. Omnia is a large and modern provider of education that offers a wide range of services with a focus on supporting lifelong learning. Our actions are guided by the changing needs of the future.

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תוכנית היזמות העכשווית של הומניה

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תוכנית היזמות העכשווית של הומניה

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In January 2019, a pilot course in entrepreneurship was introduced in seven Saudi high schools with the goal of developing an entrepreneurial mindset and spirit as well as ensuring students' readiness for business life.

The course is based on two Finnish professional training modules, "Entrepreneurial Mindset" and "Planning a Business", tailored to fit the Saudi market and delivered by local teachers who are trained and supported by experts from Omnia Education Partnerships.

The course is implemented in partnership with Saudi Ministry of Education and Small & Medium Enterprises General Authority Monsha'at.

An Eye-Opening Experience for Students

129 students are now taking the course in Saudi Arabia. In the school of Al Motaqadimah located in Riyadh, Ammar, 18, and Abdullah, 17, are two of those students. The two boys describe their learning journey as an eye-opening one.

"I used to think of entrepreneurship as a career choice for someone who has failed in university," Ammar admits. Today, he considers entrepreneurship as his dream work, which allows him to contribute to his community in a meaningful way. Ammar is still planning on going to university, but is also working in a company he set up with his father.

Abdullah's dream since childhood has been to work with science, perhaps with biochemistry. After joining the course, he was surprised how much his options multiplied: "It changed my perspective. I was relieved to learn that I can do whatever I want. I am still sticking to science, but I have many ideas now."

Developing Important Life Skills

Course feedback from both students and teachers has been overwhelmingly positive. 87,5 % percent of the students evaluated their learning experience as excellent or very good. The students have also developed important life skills on the course. According to student feedback, the tops skills and attributes they have developed include goal setting, self-confidence, dealing with uncertainty, creativity, problem solving as well as presentation and digital skills.

For Abdullah, working in a team and discussing ideas with other students has been one of the most important aspects of the course. "Before, I thought I didn't need any help from anyone. During the course, I have learned to work in a team and appreciate teamwork," he explains. "I have also learned how to act in a professional manner."

Ammar has learned a lot about managing a business and is no longer afraid of failing or taking risks. "I am a hard worker now and someone who believes in business," he points out.

The boys would recommend the course to all young people: "This course gives you hope, you are recognized. I would definitely recommend it even if it might be a bit uncomfortable," says Abdullah.

The entrepreneurship course will come to an end in December 2019, and students who have successfully completed both modules will receive an official Diploma from Omnia, the Joint Authority of Education in the Espoo Region.

Read more about Educating Future Entrepreneurs in Saudi Arabia on the project website.

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OEP news Archives | Page 2 of 6 | Omnia Education Partnerships

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In January 2019, a pilot course in entrepreneurship was introduced in seven Saudi high schools with the goal of developing an entrepreneurial mindset and spirit as well as ensuring students' readiness for business life.

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אתר בית הספר

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אתר בית הספר

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בית הספר הדמוקרטי בחדרה

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https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%91%D7%99%D7%AA_%D7%94%D7%A1%D7%A4%D7%A8_%D7%94%D7%93%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%A7%D7%A8%D7%98%D7%99_%D7%91%D7%97%D7%93%D7%A8%D7%94

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The Democratic School of Hadera | presentation film | 2018 | english

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חלק ראשון - ראיון עם יעקב למה בחרת להציג את בית הספר הנ"ל במוק הזה. (10 דקות)

הסבר על בית הספר ע"י המקים/מנהל של בית הספר (10-20 דקות)- למה? - מה? - ואיך?

חומר רקע - (מבוא וידאו על חומר הרקע - 5 דקות)
מאמרים (מבית הספר)
מאמרים (אקדמים)
וידאו
שאלות - בעיקבות קריאת חומר הרקע
לפי הפיצה בשש תחומים ובשלוש רמות
משימה - לקראת סיכום בפרק האחרון

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מבנה הקורס -פתיח

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מבנה הקורס -
פתיחה - רבקה - חשיבות הקורס הזה היום וכוונות לעתיד
הרחבת גבול הדמיון -
למידה במעגל השלישי
אלווין טופלר ו"רמזים מעתיד"
ומעבר מפרדיעגת הפרמידה לפרדיגת הרשת.
הצגת בתי הספר ולמידה אקטיבית
פרק סיום - דיון עם כל מנהלי בתי הספר שבתוכנית - סביב הסוגית בתי הספר של העתיד

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The Evangelical School Berlin Centre is a private "free" school - that is, it costs money to go there, but the tuition is on a means-tested sliding scale, and the students enjoy enormous educational freedom - that has drawn attention thanks to the exceptional performance of its graduating students.

At ESBC, there are no timetables or lesson plans, and students aren't graded until they are 15. Students devise their own courses of study, deciding how they'll tackle the material. The curriculum includes courses called "Responsibility" and "Challenge" and students aged 12-14 are also sent out into the world for weeks at a time on their own, with a small amount of cash, to have "adventures."

The school has some inflexible structural elements, such as mandatory Saturday attendance at a "silentium" day for students who lag behind during the week's lessons. The school's head teacher, Margret Rasfeld, describes this structure as complementary to the freedom, a kind of boundary around the edges.

There are good pedagogical reasons to favor this kind of learner-first, individualized education, but the school's own rhetoric is all about training a generation of effective workers who are ready to enter collaborative, creative workplaces where everything is different every time, and change is the norm. This school-as-work-training is an interesting piece of judo, since free school advocates often trace the roots of modern, bell-driven, rigid, anticollaborative educational system as a relic of the Industrial Revolution's need for factory-ready workers.

30% of ESBC's students are the children of migrants and 7% come from homes where no German is spoken. The school is nominally Christian (and includes mandatory Christian services at the start of each day), but pupils are drawn from a variety of religious backgrounds.

ESBC's graduates test out in the nation's top tier in their admissions exams for the comprehensive school system, and perform well in more structured educational environments after graduation. The school has a 500-student waiting list and some Germans have called for the approach to go national.

I'm a product of a similar educational program, which I started in fourth grade, at a public alternative school in Toronto that educated kids from kindergarten to eighth grade in one group, with student-driven, project-based learning, and regular times (every second Wednesday afternoon) when we were expected to leave the school on our own and travel around the city on public transit to learn things on our own. I went on to Toronto's public secondary alternative school system and ultimately spent seven years there, delaying university admission because I felt I was able to learn so much for free in my high school (I ultimately failed to graduate from four universities because I was frustrated with their inflexibility and emphasis on exams and rote learning).

Aged 65 and due to retire in July, Rasfeld still has ambitious plans. A four-person "education innovation lab" based at the school has been developing teaching materials for schools that want to follow the ESBC's lead. About 40 schools in Germany are in the process of adopting some or all of Rasfeld's methods. One in Berlin's Weissensee district recently let a student trek across the Alps for a challenge project. "Things are only getting started," says Rasfeld.

"In education, you can only create change from the bottom - if the orders come from the top, schools will resist. Ministries are like giant oil tankers: it takes a long time to turn them around. What we need is lots of little speedboats to show you can do things differently."

No grades, no timetable: Berlin school turns teaching upside down
[Philip Oltermann/The Guardian]

( Image: The Learning Office [School on the Move/Vimeo]

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German free school teaches without grades, timetables or lesson plans | Boing Boing

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The Evangelical School Berlin Centre is a private "free" school -- that is, it costs money to go there, but the tuition is on a means-tested sliding scale, and the students enjoy enormous educational freedom -- that has drawn attention thanks to the exceptional performance of its graduating students.

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Mission

Maui Aloha Project aspires to create a sustainable, thriving eco-village on large shared land offering a Healing Center for the Transformational Arts, an inter-generational alternative learning environment for children, an international conference center, performance art studio, educational farming and research cooperative, and all forms of experiments in conscious interaction and communion with nature that are in alignment with responsible paradigms for peaceful living on planet Earth.

Maui Aloha Project (MAP) honors and promotes cultural values while utilizing diversified means to explore paths of transformation of consciousness leading to attainment of a sense of belonging, intrinsic self-worth, and joy for all.

MAP is a learning environment embracing cultural and cognitive diversity and offering programs and processes that cultivate new opportunities for expansion of human potential in cooperation with nature.

MAP is a haven for residents, visitors and the international community, a living entity embodying the spirit of Healing and Transformation and exploring possibilities and new creations for a New Earth.

Maui Aloha Project offers itself as a catalyst for change through integration of body, mind, heart and spirit in sacred communion with nature.

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Maui Aloha Project aspires to create a sustainable, thriving eco-village on large shared land offering a Healing Center for the Transformational Arts, an inter-generational alternative learning environment for children, an international conference center, performance art studio, educational farming and research cooperative, and all forms of experiments in conscious interaction and communion with nature that are in alignment with responsible paradigms for peaceful living on planet Earth.

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אתר בית הספר

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אתר בית הספר

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יש פה גם את הפילוסופיה וגם המון המון תמונות וסרטונים

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Over the last 19 years, Riverside has designed, implemented and shared a unique user centered curriculum that is providing schools with an alternative model which focuses on quality of learning AND student well being. The practices have been recognized worldwide and the school has regularly been honored for its academic achievement as well as its unique philosophy of 'Doing Good AND Doing Well'.

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מייקר ספייס בבית הספר

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מייקר ספייס בבית הספר

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makerspace

The Riverside Makerspace is part of the school's natural progression & evolution. At its heart, it is a direct extension of one of our core pedagogical practices - experiential learning. The Makerspace will allow our students to experience the entire cycle of problem-solving & creation. Having identified a challenge, they will collaborate to ideate, learn new skills & use new tools, design and build prototypes, test for effectiveness and refine their solutions.

As we develop the program, we expect that students who wish to enter design and engineering streams will be able to get a first-hand experience of what it means to bean engineer or a designer. We aim, over the next few years, to have all our budding designers & engineers build a portfolio of ideas and solutions developed at the Makerspace as part of their college applications : perhaps a better demonstration of their skills, interest & motivation than mere exam performance.

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The Riverside Makerspace is part of the school's natural progression & evolution. At its heart, it is a direct extension of one of our core pedagogical practices - experiential learning. The Makerspace will allow our students to experience the entire cycle of problem-solving & creation.

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סקירה של education world על בית הספר  EW

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סקירה של education world על בית הספר  EW

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דגשים על פי קבוצות גיל:
בגיל הרך - מודעות לסביבה ולאנשים
בגיל הביניים - לנוע בין חוויות, להסיק מסקנות וליצור קשרים
בגיל הבוגר - להעצים את התלמידים לבחור בעיות ולמצוא להן פתרונות. לתקן את העולם

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Overview

The Riverside School is located in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. It was established by Kiran Bir Sethi in 2001. With a capacity of 390 students, it is a small school on the banks of the Sabarmati River. It is also a research center for school education. In the past 11 years, the school has experimented with the latest learning models and has established itself as a pioneer in the field of education.

Riverside is the amalgamation of an approach to learning that is embedded in common sense and a vibrant research centre for school education. Over the last 11 years, Riverside has developed, implemented and shared a unique curriculum that is proving to be the benchmark for a no-compromise school education of the highest quality.

By developing and sharing such a research-based, practical curriculum, Riverside is providing schools with an alternative model which focuses on excellence and still works in different economic and cultural contexts which make it possible for children all around the country to have access to true education.

Campus

The school provides excellent campus with luxuriant infrastructure facilities such as centralized air-conditioner, well stocked library, advanced equipped hi-tech labs, a cafeteria, play area, an auditorium, music room and transportation.

Riverside School is a day school and hostel facilities are not provided.

Academics

The school has developed an in-house curriculum up to the standard VII. Grades VIII - XII follow the International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) curriculum.

The school is divided into three Key Stages (KS) based on age-based learning styles and preferences.

KS 1-Aware(Kindergarten - Grade II)-The focus of this key-stage is to make children 'Aware' of their surroundings - the people, the places, the events and objects- and allow them to develop frameworks to understand this complexity.

KS 2-Enable(Grade III - VII)-The focus of this key stage is to 'Enable' the children to move between experiences, draw conclusions and make connections.

KS 3-Empower(Grade VIII - XII)-At this stage, students are considered as mature learners. The focus is to 'Empower' the children to now use their skills and competencies to solve problems and lead the change they wish to see in the world.

Besides academics, children are encouraged to engage themselves in various 'Interest Centers' and are given plenty of opportunities to interact with students from different schools in the city/state and globally through student exchange programs.

Head of Institute

Kiran Bir Sethi

General Information

Teacher Student Ratio
0.045833333

No of Students
390

Admission

The application form can be downloaded from the school website. It needs to be filled up and submitted to the school personally along with an application fee Rs. 750.

Guided school tour is available from 10.30 am to 12.30 pm, Monday to Friday.

Key Stage 1 (Pre K to grade II)

No test will be conducted for entrance into Pre-K and K1

A language comprehension evaluation will be taken for children of K2.

Key Stage 2 (Grade III to VII)

Written testwill be conducted for grades III toVII

Key stage 3 (Grade VIII to XII)

Written testwill be conducted for grades VIII to XII

Fee details are available on request.

Achievement

Over the last 11 years, Riverside has developed, implemented and shared a unique curriculum that is proving to be the benchmark for a no-compromise school education of the highest quality.

Accomodation

NA

Updates

Education World Survey

Total Score: 1280

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The Riverside School, Ahmedabad - EducationWorld

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Overview The Riverside School is located in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. It was established by Kiran Bir Sethi in 2001. With a capacity of 390 students, it is a small school on the banks of the Sabarmati River. It is also a research center for school education.

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סרטון מתוך ספר און-ליין "מנהיגות שיחתית"

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סרטון מתוך ספר און-ליין "מנהיגות שיחתית"

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הסרטון השני 7 דקות 20 שניות, הוא לדעתי הכי טוב שלה. זה ממש הסיור בבית הספר תוך כדי הסבר מעמיק

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Resources

NAVIGATION

SEARCH

This page is part of an online book on Conversational Leadership. Parts of the book have restricted access. You can learn more about the book and how to obtain full access on the home page.

Categories Tags

Conversational Stories children, education, Kiran Bir Sethi

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The Riverside School, Ahmedabad | Conversational Leadership

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Gurteen Knowledge Letter The Gurteen Knowledge Letter is a free monthly newsletter that I have been publishing by email for the last 20 years. Learn more and register on the Gurteen Knowledge Website Death Café ** Resources Wikipedia: The Riverside School, Ahmedabad [Status: Stub. I plan to write about Kiran Bir Sethi and her ...

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מאמר על ריברסייד בEDUTOPIA

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מאמר על ריברסייד בEDUTOPIA

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מאמר די מקיף ויסודי

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When Kiran Bir Sethi set out to start a new school in Ahmedabad, India, almost two decades ago, she didn't have an education background, a teaching staff, or the backing of investors: She just wanted to provide a better education for her young son, whose creativity and independence, she felt, were squashed by rigid schooling.

"For the longest time, education has made the parent the primary stakeholder. When you put a child back front and center, they will shape the story," said Sethi, reflecting on her own background as a design professional and the design thinking process she used to create the school. "Our children became our designers right off."

With Sethi's determination and commitment to child-centered teaching and learning, Riverside School launched in Sethi's home in 2001 with 27 children and five teachers; today, the school occupies three buildings across a 600 square yard tree-lined lot and serves 400 pre-K-12 students, ranking among the country's top-10 schools based on student achievement in mathematics, science, and English on the national benchmark ASSET exams.

To Sethi and Riverside teachers, the school's mission is "not to be the best school in the world, but the best school for the world."

Instead of receiving the rote learning and teacher-driven instruction that remain commonplace in India's 1.5 million public and private schools, Riverside students are treated as key stakeholders in their education. Through project-based learning activities and simulations that mimic real-world challenges, Riverside students develop independence so they graduate prepared to tackle future challenges as citizens in a highly globalized world. Though the school is private, the student population is intentionally diverse, with nearly half of students receiving some form of financial aid to attend. There are no admissions tests or other screenings.

Grades PK-12 | Ahmedabad, Gujarat

Enrollment

400 | Private, Urban

Per Pupil Expenditures

Free / Reduced Lunch

13%

"We want to get them to believe, 'I can do what I want to do, and I can be the person I want to be,'" said longtime teacher Phoram Desai, who coordinates the primary grades academic program.

Riverside's "I Can" approach to education is spreading far beyond the school's tree-lined campus. A citizenship challenge and curriculum called Design for Change builds agency and empathy by guiding students through a problem-solving process; it's currently used in more than 60 countries and thousands of schools, according to Riverside. In recognition of its leadership, Riverside was designated a changemaker school by the Ashoka Foundation in 2015.

Community Comes First

Riverside's strong sense of community is regularly reinforced through daily gatherings called Congloms, short for conglomerations, which bring students and teachers together for the school's version of a morning meeting or circle time.

Congloms are brief: They can last from 30 to 45 minutes and involve a single grade level, a division, or the entire school-sometimes they're even led by students. The focus differs, ranging from games and celebrations to discussions that encourage students to reflect on social and emotional, spiritual, or newsy topics, like body image or upcoming elections.

Teachers say the activities provide an opportunity for students and staff to get to know each other and build closer relationships, while encouraging students to speak up for themselves and listen to their peers-skills that will be valuable as they graduate and become adults.

"We're in this journey together," said Niall Walsh, a 12th-grade teacher. "Congloms help grow an individual who is going to go out into society and solve problems, understand themselves, and connect with others."

Real-World Learning

The joyful atmosphere does not come at the expense of academic rigor. Client projects, for example, use hands-on, project-based learning opportunities to build students' skills in design thinking, collaboration, and problem solving. Teachers at every grade level plan lessons by deliberately mapping content learning goals to real needs in community that students can relate to.

And often, "clients" drop by to meet students in person. Second graders, for example, studied habitats, camouflage, and adaptations, and then interviewed an army officer to learn what type of uniform he would need in different environments. Using cloth samples, cotton balls, sand, and glue, students designed uniform prototypes suitable for the officer to wear in the snow and in the desert. The officer returned to critique and provide feedback on their designs.

The goal is to show students "the connection between their learning and real life," explained Bhavika Chandnani, a second-grade teacher. "Everything they do and learn has a relevance behind it. Where are they going to use it in real life?"

Students as Change Agents

To encourage children to become engaged citizens, Riverside teachers plan immersive experiences that put students into unfamiliar-and sometimes difficult-roles.

For a unit on child labor, fifth graders participated in a two-day simulation making incense sticks to appreciate what it would be like if they had to work in a factory. The work was dirty and taxing. The conditions were dimly lit and crowded. Usually kind teachers turned into demanding taskmasters, barking orders and even limiting water and food until students reached certain quotas.

One boy said he began his first day expecting to have fun, but by day's end, with his face smudged with soot, he empathetically said, "I'm very sad. My back is aching. It's like stepping into their shoes and feeling what they do."

In the teacher-guided reflection that followed the experience, students discussed actions they could take to influence change in their community. In the past, students have put on street plays to raise awareness of child labor, organized game days for children living in slums, or supported the work of nonprofit partners that address child hunger.

"When the child goes through that experiential learning, I see them building empathy and having gratitude for their own lives," said math teacher Itchha Chainani. "I'm proud I'm creating citizens who are changing the world."

What makes this a SCHOOL THAT WORKS

Edutopia wishes to thank Teach for All for helping us discover Riverside School.

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When Kiran Bir Sethi set out to start a new school in Ahmedabad, India, almost two decades ago, she didn't have an education background, a teaching staff, or the backing of investors: She just wanted to provide a better education for her young son, whose creativity and independence, she felt, were squashed by rigid schooling.

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המון תמונות של ריברסייד

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המון תמונות של ריברסייד

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riverside school ahmedabad - Google Search

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campus reviews the riverside ahmedabad gujarat csd depot kiran bir sethi ahmedabad fees education kiran sethi shahibaug ahmedabad

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סרטון TED מטורף, 20 דקות, של מרגרט רספלד ותלמידה שלה לשעבר מבית הספר

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סרטון TED מטורף, 20 דקות, של מרגרט רספלד ותלמידה שלה לשעבר מבית הספר

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היא מתחילה בכותרת - איך עברתי ממורה למובילת שינוי. הייתי מתרגמת את כל הסרט הזה אם היה אפשר

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Changing Education system | Margret Rasfeld | TEDxTUWien

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בלוג של ליסה גיל שסיירה בבית הספר ב2016. סיור מרתק

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בלוג של ליסה גיל שסיירה בבית הספר ב2016. סיור מרתק

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How this Berlin school is embracing self-management

I first came across The Evangelical School Berlin Centre (ESBC) in Frederic Laloux's book ' Reinventing Organisations '. It opened in 2007 under the guidance of director Margret Rasfeld and today, with some 1,500 students, it has become internationally recognised for its innovative curriculum and organisational model.

Last week I had the chance to visit ESBC on one of its Open Days. I sat down with one of the teachers, Christian Hausner, to learn more about self-management as both a cornerstone of how students learn and how staff work together.

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Reinventing education: designing learning for 21st century challenges

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I first came across The Evangelical School Berlin Centre (ESBC) in Frederic Laloux's book ' Reinventing Organisations '. It opened in 2007 under the guidance of director Margret Rasfeld and today, with some 1,500 students, it has become internationally recognised for its innovative curriculum and organisational model.

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תמצית הסרטון של רספלד בוורד

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תמצית הסרטון של רספלד בוורד

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תמצית בית הספר בברלין

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בית ספר 42 היא רשת בתי ספר פרטית, ללא מטרות רווח וללא שכר לימוד.

הרשת הוקמה ומומנה לראשונה על ידי המיליארדר ה צרפתי קסבייה ניאל, מייסד חברת התקשורת איליאד ומבעלי גולן טלקום, עם כמה שותפים ביניהם ניקולה סאדיראק (מנכ"ל לשעבר של בית הספר לאפטק ב צרפת), קוואמה ימננה ופלוריאן בוקר (מנהלים לשעבר של חברת אפיטק).

בית הספר 42 הראשון, נפתח ב פריז בשנת 2013.

ייחודיותו של 42 הוא בכך שבבית הספר אין מורים, ואין הוא מעניק תעודה או תואר כלשהו. התלמידים לומדים ממקורות דיגיטליים, באופן עצמאי ונעזרים האחד באחר.

בית הספר פתוח 24 שעות ביממה, שבעה ימים בשבוע. הלמידה מתקיימת במגוון דרכים חדשניות להוראה הכוללות למידת עמיתים ו למידה מבוססת פרויקטים.

בית הספר זכה לתמיכתם של אנשים רבים מעמק הסיליקון, כולל אוון שפיגל, המייסד והמנכ"ל של סנאפצ'ט. קייבון בייקור, המייסד והמנכ"ל של פריסקופ, סטיוארט בטרפילד המייסד והמנכ"ל של סלאק, בריאן צ'סקי. המייסד והמנכ"ל של חברת Airbnb, טוני פאדל המייסד והמנכ"ל של מעבדות Nest של גוגל, ג'ק דורסי המייסד המשותף ומנכ"ל טוויטר.

בית הספר הוא ארגון ללא מטרות רווח והלימודים בו הם בחינם, במימון המיליארדר קסבייה ניאל במאות מיליוני דולרים. כל הקניין הרוחני שייך לסטודנטים.

"עמק הסיליקון 42" הוא הקמפוס האמריקני של 42, אשר מוגן כחברה ללא מטרות רווח לתועלת הציבור במדינת קליפורניה ונוצר ומומן על ידי אותו צוות מצרפת, בנוסף לשותפה חדשה, סטודנטית לשעבר ב-42 בפריז, בריטני ביר. הוא נפתח בקיץ 2016 בפרמונט בקליפורניה באזור מפרץ סן פרנסיסקו.

מקור שמו, 42, הוא בספר המדע הבדיוני " מדריך הטרמפיסט לגלקסיה" שלפיו "התשובה לחיים, ליקום וכל השאר" היא 42.

בנוסף לשני בתי הספר הרשמיים בפריס ובקליפורניה, אומץ מודל בית הספר ב ליון, ריימס, מולהאוס שבצרפת, כמו גם ב רומניה, דרום אפריקה, אוקראינה, בולגריה, מולדובה, בלגיה, רוסיה, מרוקו, הולנד ו פינלנד בתמיכה של מייסדי 42.

1. WeThinkCode (דרום אפריקה - נוסד בשנת 2016): WeThinkCode הוא סוג חדש של חממה טכנולוגית המיועדת למיגור פער מיומנויות בטכנולוגיית מידע. המשימה של WeThinkCode היא לאתר ולהכשיר את כישרון הקידוד העתידי של אפריקה. מבוסס על תוכניות הלימודים בבית ספר 42.

2. ACADEMY+MOLDOVA (מולדובה - נוסד בשנת 2016): בית ספר IT אלטרנטיבי וחינמי, שהושק על ידי Foundation IT Moldova בשיתוף האקדמיה + פלוס קלוז'-נפוקה ו-42 בפריז.

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בית ספר 42 היא רשת בתי ספר פרטית, ללא מטרות רווח וללא שכר לימוד. הרשת הוקמה ומומנה לראשונה על ידי המיליארדר ה צרפתי קסבייה ניאל, מייסד חברת התקשורת איליאד ומבעלי גולן טלקום, עם כמה שותפים ביניהם ניקולה סאדיראק (מנכ"ל לשעבר של בית הספר לאפטק ב צרפת), קוואמה ימננה ופלוריאן בוקר (מנהלים לשעבר של חברת אפיטק).

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ביקור ב42 קליפורניה

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ביקור ב42 קליפורניה

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סרטון ממש טוב שבו הסטודנטים מסבירים איך בית הספר עובד

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A visit to 42, the free US coding school | Ars Technica

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ראיון עם המנהלת התפעולית של 42

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ראיון עם המנהלת התפעולית של 42

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מתחיל ב4 שבועות של "בריכת שחייה" בלי הפסקות וחופשות. מי שמצליח לעבור אותם מתקבל. לא צריך שום תעודה, אפילו לא תיכון.
אין שום שכר לימוד גם לא אחרי הלימודים. גם המעונות הם חינם. מכוונים ל-1000 תלמידים בו זמנית.
בפריז מנסים תכנית למובטלים בני 30 ומעלה.
אין מורים, לגמרי מבוססי פרויקטים ולמידת עמיתים.
נתמכים על ידי מיליארדר צרפתי שקשור לחברות תקשורת.
הוא החליט לשבש את התעשייה.
אין הגבלות זמן על סיום פרויקטים. העמיתים בודקים את הפרויקט. אין עובר או נכשל.
הרקע של התלמידים לאוו דווקא בטכנולוגיה.
מי שעבר את ברכת שחייה מוזמן לתכנית של 3 עד 5 שנים. מתחילים מתי שרוצים.
לבית הספר אין שום זכויות על תוכנות שהתלמידים פיתחו במסגרת בית הספר.
19% נשים בקליפורניה ו10% נשים בפריז

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אתר של SOLE בקולומביה. יש כל מיני סרטונים אבל אני לא מצליחה להבין מה אני רואה. זה בית ספר אחד? זה לקוח מכל מני בתי ספר? לא יודעת אם זה מתאים לנו

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אתר של SOLE בקולומביה. יש כל מיני סרטונים אבל אני לא מצליחה להבין מה אני רואה. זה בית ספר אחד? זה לקוח מכל מני בתי ספר? לא יודעת אם זה מתאים לנו

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¡Durante el Festival de Innovación Disruptiva - DIF 2018, escuchamos a Dolly, María y Jorge, 3 increíbles embajadores de #SOLEColombia, quienes nos compartieron cómo cambian su mundo con el aprendizaje auto-organizado! Escúchalos aquí: - At the Disruptive Innovation Festival - DIF 2018, we listened to Dolly, María and Jorge, 3 amazing #SOLEColombia ambassadors, who shared with us how they change they world with self-organised learning! Listen to them here: Ya sea con hijos de familias desplazadas por el conflicto armado, [...]

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¡Durante el Festival de Innovación Disruptiva - DIF 2018, escuchamos a Dolly, María y Jorge, 3 increíbles embajadores de #SOLEColombia, quienes nos compartieron cómo cambian su mundo con el aprendizaje auto-organizado! Escúchalos aquí: - At the Disruptive Innovation Festival - DIF 2018, we listened to Dolly, María and Jorge, 3 amazing #SOLEColombia ambassadors, who shared with us how they change they world with self-organised learning!

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📹מרכזי למידה מונעי אנרגיית שמש באפריקה ונפאל. חוויאר כותב שאתה מכיר את  קתרין שקשורה לזה. גם כאן, אני לא בטוחה שזה מתאים לקורס

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📹מרכזי למידה מונעי אנרגיית שמש באפריקה ונפאל. חוויאר כותב שאתה מכיר את  קתרין שקשורה לזה. גם כאן, אני לא בטוחה שזה מתאים לקורס

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Hello World is a charity with a solution. Solar-powered, internet-enabled education hubs. Built by the community, for the community.

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At Agora, we believe that school has to be a good mix between:

Harvard University ... a place where all the knowledge of the world is within reach.

A Buddhist monastery ... where you feel comfortable and at ease and where you discover what is valuable to you in life.

A creative laboratory ... where you can make and try everything you can imagine: painting, welding, graphic design, 3D printing...from cooking to programming to making a robot: if you can imagine it, you can make it.

A marketplace ... where you can see new things, meet and inspire each other, debate and interact.

Disneyland ... a place where you feel happy, amazed and above all: welcome, supported and challenged by the staff!!
A day at Agora
At Agora we have a simple daily structure. Within this structure, your coach teaches you to plan your challenges and other activities. Coaches start at 8 in the morning. Students start at 9 with a 'dagstart' (start of the day). This takes half an hour, and it's all about interacting with other students about working together, or for instance debating about topical subjects.After the 'dagstart' everybody has their own agenda. After the lunch break, we have half an hour of silence, so everybody can do their obligatory reading. Most of your days end at 3pm. It's possible and sometimes necessary to stay longer for instance to visit physical education.
Agora
> We start with you. What do you want to learn? What are your talents, interests, and ambitions? You can use everything in the world that's worthwhile to investigate, make or develop as your personal starting point for learning. Your personal coach will support and supervise your learning process. At Agora we traded courses, timetables, classes, and tests for challenges, collaboration and coaching by teachers.

> Challenges are your personal questions, problems, things you want to learn or know, research or make. To start a challenge you have to be well prepared. Good preparation is half the battle. You and your coach decide what the end result of your challenge will be and answer questions like: What are you going to learn during this challenge? Who are you going to collaborate with to achieve a great result? How long will your challenge take? Of course if necessary your coach and other students will be there to help you with this.

> After your preparation, you present your plan for your challenge. During this presentation, you explain who might be able to help you in the various stages of the challenge to come. You explain where and how you expect to get information and knowledge. If this goes well you can start your challenge. During this execution phase, you keep track of your progress. You write down how you found information and which information you found where and how. If you're making something you can also add pictures or videos to show and explain the progress. You, for instance, explain the difficulties and problems you encountered. You also explain how you overcome them. And of course, you write down what you want to achieve tomorrow.

> At the end of the challenge you present your end product. There are lots of ways to do this. You can make a video, a sculpture or painting to show off what you learned. Maybe you will invite us to come to a stable because you want to show us what you learned about horses in practice. Your parents, other students, and your coach are all invited for your presentation.

> After this, you have a 'review- talk' with your coach. You reflect on how your challenge went, which skills you improved and how you can use these during your next challenge.
Personal workspace and coach group
Your coaching group consists of a maximum of 17 other children of different age and levels. At your coaching group you have a personal workspace which you can arrange to your own taste. This means there is no walking to a different classroom every 50 minutes, instead you work at your personal workspace. Do you like variety? We also have rooms to collaborate and have meetings in. We even have silence rooms, where you can study in silence. We have workspaces where you can cook, do carpentry, painting, metalworking, or program a robot, etc. We also have volunteers who offer inspirational sessions which you can join, and we love it when you visit people and companies outside our school.
Student, coach, and course expert
At Agora you as a student have a personal coach. The two of you make your personal learning plan. Making adjustments to this plan is a continued process. You are in a coaching group with 17 other students and a coach. At least once a week you have a talk with your coach. Aside from this 'official' talk you see and talk to your coach every day because you are in the same room every day. When you have been at Agora for a couple of years and start preparing for the national exams you start working with our subject experts. They are teachers who support you for a specific subject.
Parents
Parents have an important role at Agora. We expect them to help on a voluntary basis. This could be anything, like helping in one of our workplaces (kitchen, carpentry, makerspace etc.). Or helping us by driving students to places they want to visit. Lots of parents offer internships, give workshops or inspiration sessions on their personal hobbies, interests, passion or occupation. Parents share these personal hobbies, interests, passions, and occupations with our students. This is great because schools can't be experts at everything.

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We start with you. What do you want to learn? What are your talents, interests, and ambitions? You can use everything in the world that's worthwhile to investigate, make or develop as your personal starting point for learning. Your personal coach will support and supervise your learning process.

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בהמשך הטור אני מוסיפה תמצית בעברית של המאמר המצוין הזה

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One of the teachers of Agora, Rob Houben, welcomed us and we immediately jumped in one of their classrooms, for the Dagstaart.

The classroom didn't feel like a classroom, but more of a co-working space: a bunch of chairs and desks here and there, with no particular order, all the kids with their own Chromebooks and a huge TV for presentations. Our office in Amsterdam doesn't look very different than this.

Rob asked the pupils to spend 10 minutes preparing their "challenges", figuring out tasks for today associated with them and finally be able to present to the whole class their plan for today, to show that they have enough to do.

With the kids busy thinking and writing down their goals, we realised that they were not even the same age: this class had children ranging from 12 till 16 year old, boys and girls, with different levels of schools (VMBO, HAVO and Gymnasium; think of them as professional, technical and lyceum level). It struck me as a somewhat realistic representation of the society, with people of different ages and backgrounds mixed, coming together to achieve their own goals, helping each other.

A girl took the first slot: she is interested in psychology and wanted to learn a bit more about that, and her mother recommended her to have a career in physiotherapy, so she will be looking into that as well. From her log of activities it was showing that she had already did some research about those topics: there was a small cart about foam rollers in the "Done" column of his board. For each of these goals, she wrote down a start date and an end date, effectively "time-boxing" these tasks. The second pupil to take the stage was going to move to Spain with her family and had two tasks, "learning Spanish politics" and "language". Because the latter was very non-descriptive and without a clear end in sight, a fellow student stepped in and recommended her to break it down in small, achievable subtasks. A few more children gave their presentations, and their goal could not be more different: learn horse-riding, improve their math skills, and so on.

Throughout the presentations, their teacher Rob kept engaging the pupils, asking questions around, such as "do you think that this goal is achievable in this time span?". The impression was that, despite talking about individual challenges, the whole class was participating into the planning.

As the pupils were dismissed (it was time to work on the goals, after all), we started walking down the corridors of this unconventional place. A girl was playing guitar sitting in the corridor, another one was painting in a small atelier in the middle of the hallway.
Rob gave us a bit of a backstory for Niekée College (whose motto is Albert Einstein's quote " Imagination is far more important than knowledge "), where it all began:

Around ten years ago, it was decided that a new kind of school was to be created. A school in which children could boost their creativity. So eventually this building happened. And they didn't ask teachers. They said that when they ask teachers about how a school should look, they only get boring answers. So they ignored the teachers... and we got this building. I think they were right, after all.

In the main hallway, a climbing wall stands out: a few students are allowed to teach and help others climb. If they want to do so, they can.

This definitely doesn't feel like a school. Too relaxed, too fun. And that is precisely the point, we are told.

We finally moved to a different room which is also sometimes rented as co-working space for Seats2Meet. Again, something quite unconventional about this place.

"If you wanted to come and work at Niekée College - continues Rob - they asked you, as a teacher, to deliver the program in 75% of the normal time. The remaining 25% of the time is for students to be creative". Something akin the " 20% time" rule that Google had some years ago, which brought them many cool products. The whole idea of Niekée College, and Agora in particular, is to actually let go of all the control that a teacher usually has on the activities of the students. To trust them with their own education.

After the successful experiment of Niekée college, a couple of years ago, they decided to up the level: to devise a school with no subjects, no tests, no lessons. A school in which students learn how to learn and can use it throughout their life. We started with 30 students, and have doubled every year since.

Students are free to do whatever they want to do, after a coach agrees with their plan, which happens basically every time. The teachers even call themselves coaches, because they don't "teach" to the students, they strive to not tell them anything. The students have to learn themselves, any way they can. Coaches are there just to ask the right questions, to steer the research of the students in the right direction, to provide ideas and opportunities for their development. Even when they get stuck and don't know how to proceed, the coach only asks them questions like "how do you think you can retrieve that information?". By just giving pragmatical advice, the students are always encouraged to think for themselves. No Deus ex machina in their learning process.

We did not fully understand this way of teaching, because our thinking is very coupled with our idea of school as a place in which "truth" is told. We trust teachers to give correct information to student. If we take that away and let students learn by themselves, by Googling and browsing Wikipedia, wouldn't they be exposed to a whole lot of questionable research? What if they stumble upon Flat Earth Society and take their information for truth? What if, researching the Shoah they find negationists' websites? In a world which, in the last few months, politics has been dominated by post-truth, that is certainly a worrying question.

Rob doesn't seem too worried, however. "It's all part of the learning process. Sure, we could tell them anything they need to know, like schools traditionally do, but we strive at teaching that learning does not require school. When they graduate, they won't have an established system to tell them about the world. They will have the tools that they have right now, so they better be educated at using them".

Let's assume a 12 year old is always satisfied with the first thing he finds about a certain topic and stumbles upon the Flat Earth Society. He will then include their information in his report". Then it's my role as a coach to ask him whether he thinks that opinions are founded, and whether he looked for more sources. You know, there are many levels of finding sources and providing citations. There is also a learning process there and we don't assume the kids to be able to do everything at the very beginning.

Naturally that the internet is one of the most important tools that they use in their research for knowledge, but we are told that pupils tend to favour "network knowledge". Because all the learning at Agora is public, every student can see what everybody else is doing at the moment. Furthermore, they are also aware of the profession of everybody's parents. They often work by continuously asking themselves "which expert could I ask this to?". Learning is framed more as a social process.

Rob gave us such an example: "A student was really interested in how the atomic bomb works. He knew that a fellow student's mother was a science teacher in another school, so he arranged to talk with her. Unfortunately, she could not provide him with all the knowledge he wanted, so he figured out that a university nearby had a sort of open-day, where the general public could go and ask questions to professors. So asked his coach for permission and took a day off school".

By doing so, the kids are taught many things: they can learn anything they want if they put effort into it, and that often in life it's the matter of knowing the right people for the job. So the pupils are encouraged to expand their social graph, a trend which is quite contrarian to what is becoming the norm: social isolation through technology.

We are told about a student who was very interested in the Roman Empire. He learned a lot about that by simply watching hundreds of hours of online lessons. At the end of the year, he built a ballista! And at a sort of "fair" day, a parent approached him saying "Hey, that's very cool. Some time ago I built a trebuchet!" and then proceeded to explain to him the faults in his designs. More tension was required in the hanks, in order to fire the bolt more effectively, and so on.

Coaching high-school students in building an application

And also our presence there was as experts in building applications: the students at Agora use Studyflow for Rekenen and Taal (they admit that they haven't figured out a better way of teaching the basics of arithmetics and language), so they brought us in when a group of students wanted to learn how to build an app.

Learning the Agora way is quite structured still: everything that a student does has to be encoded in practical and achievable tasks (a nice hint at Scrum), with a tangible footprint: the outcome of the task must be something concrete (either a report, a video, etc.). This footprint serves a dual role: firstly, enables the coach to help the student assess the completion of the task, and secondly provides some data for other students to start from. Each material in the footprint has to be presented in a way that informs, so everybody else can benefit from it. As if every kid was encouraged to write a small Wikipedia article about the topic he just researched.

With such freedom in doing what they feel like doing, a student spends the first couple of their high school years learning freely. Around the third year, they spontaneously start looking into what is necessary for the national exam.

Yikes, exams. But after all, Agora is an officially recognised school, so it has to adhere to the national standards. And exams, flawed as they may be, are probably going to be there for the foreseeable future. I'm not necessarily against an idea of having a standard that each pupil has to have achieved, in order to start his "adult life". But in all honesty, after feeling the sense of freedom that transpires through the Agora school, I'm starting to wonder whether they are superfluous, or can be majorly reworked.

In the Netherlands, or so I am told, a student can obtain the high school diploma in two ways:

1. with an exam that normally occurs at the end of the last year and tests all subjects (the traditional way);

2. with a separate examination for each subject. Diploma is awarded when enough exams are passed.

Guess which system Agora uses? Yes, the second, more flexible-one. Preparing each subject individually allows the student to completely self-manage their studies within the whole high school years: in the third year they might be already well prepared in English because, let's assume, they want to be able to read Harry Potter in the original language. Then they can already attend the English exam, allowing them to have more time for the other subjects in the next years.

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One of the teachers of Agora, Rob Houben, welcomed us and we immediately jumped in one of their classrooms, for the Dagstaart. The classroom didn't feel like a classroom, but more of a co-working space: a bunch of chairs and desks here and there, with no particular order, all the kids with their own Chromebooks and a huge TV for presentations.

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"We get around 70 requests a week from all over the world from people wanting to come and see what we do here" says Rob Houben, manager of the Agora school in Roermond, Netherlands, and the closest thing school has to a principal or headteacher. "And I turn most of them down, I just don't have the time to do all that!"

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Meet the school with no classes, no classrooms and no curriculum

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"We get around 70 requests a week from all over the world from people wanting to come and see what we do here" says Rob Houben, manager of the Agora school in Roermond, Netherlands, and the closest...

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וידאו עם המנהל הנוכחי

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וידאו עם המנהל הנוכחי

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הכתבה של מיקי רוזנטל

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הכתבה של מיקי רוזנטל

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חינוך בפינלנד הטוב בעולם

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רבקה עושה מבוא - יזמית המוק

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רבקה עושה מבוא - יזמית המוק

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למה חשוב לי להוציא מוק בנושא זה בארץ
ומה הכוונות שלי לעתיד הקורס

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יעקב - הרחבת גבול הדמיון

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יעקב - הרחבת גבול הדמיון

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יעקב הכט - גבול הדמיון האישי והארגוני

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יעקב - אלווין טופלר

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יעקב - אלווין טופלר

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יעקב המעבר מפרמידה לרשת

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יעקב המעבר מפרמידה לרשת

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אוהלו - פרק - ראשון מבוא

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יעקב על ששת ממדי החדשנות

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יעקב על ששת ממדי החדשנות

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ביקור בבית הספר

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ביקור בבית הספר

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ביקור נוסף בבית הספר

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ביקור נוסף בבית הספר

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Innovation Hub (iHub) Live Tour | Virtual Tour | Green School Bali

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TEDxPearlRiver - John Hardy - The extraordinary Green School in Bali

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אתר בית הספר

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אתר בית הספר

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We believe in the development of caring and trusting relationships, meaningful mastery-based learning, a culture where students and teachers learn from one another, and the smart use of time, space, and technology.

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Salman Khan talks about how and why he created the remarkable Khan Academy

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Salman Khan talks about how and why he created the remarkable Khan Academy, a carefully structured series of educational videos offering complete curricula in math and, now, other subjects. He shows the power of interactive exercises, and calls for teachers to consider flipping the traditional classroom script -- give students video lectures to watch at home, and do “homework” in the classroom with the teacher available to help.

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Sal Khan shares his plan to turn struggling students into scholars by helping them master concepts at their own pace.

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Let’s teach for mastery -- not test scores

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Would you choose to build a house on top of an unfinished foundation? Of course not. Why, then, do we rush students through education when they haven’t always grasped the basics? Yes, it’s complicated, but educator Sal Khan shares his plan to turn struggling students into scholars by helping them master concepts at their own pace.

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https://www.educationdive.com/news/the-school-that-khan-built/510819/

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דף סיבות לבחירת ריברסייד

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דף סיבות לבחירת ריברסייד

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סיבות לבחירה בריברסייד

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Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center

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The Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (BMCM+AC) preserves and continues the legacy of educational and artistic innovation of Black Mountain College (BMC). We achieve our mission through collection, conservation, and educational activities including exhibitions, publications, and public programs.

Arts advocate Mary Holden founded BMCM+AC in 1993 to celebrate the history of Black Mountain College as a forerunner in progressive interdisciplinary education and to explore its extraordinary impact on modern and contemporary art, dance, theater, music, and performance. Today, the museum remains committed to educating the public about BMC's history and raising awareness of its extensive legacy. Our goal is to provide a gathering point for people from a variety of backgrounds to interact through art, ideas, and discourse.

BMCM+AC By the Numbers:

The story of Black Mountain College begins in 1933 and comprises a fascinating chapter in the history of education and the arts. Conceived by John A. Rice, a brilliant and mercurial scholar who left Rollins College in a storm of controversy, Black Mountain College was born out of a desire to create a new type of college based on John Dewey's principles of progressive education. The events that precipitated the college's founding occurred simultaneously with the rise of Adolf Hitler, the closing of the the Bauhaus school in Germany, and the beginning of the persecution of artists and intellectuals in Europe. Some of these refugees found their way to Black Mountain, either as students or faculty. Meanwhile, the United States was mired in the Great Depression.

The founders of the college believed that the study and practice of art were indispensable aspects of a student's general liberal arts education, and they hired Josef Albers to be the first art teacher. Speaking not a word of English, he and his wife Anni left the turmoil in Hitler's Germany and crossed the Atlantic Ocean by boat to teach art at this small, rebellious college in the mountains of North Carolina.

Black Mountain College was fundamentally different from other colleges and universities of the time. It was owned and operated by the faculty and was committed to democratic governance and to the idea that the arts are central to the experience of learning. All members of the college community participated in its operation, including farm work, construction projects, and kitchen duty. Twenty minutes east of Asheville, the secluded environment fostered a strong sense of individuality and creative intensity.

Legendary even in its own time, Black Mountain College attracted and created maverick spirits, some of whom went on to become well-known and extremely influential individuals in the latter half of the 20th century. A partial list includes Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg, Josef and Anni Albers, Jacob Lawrence, Merce Cunningham, John Cage, Cy Twombly, Kenneth Noland, Susan Weil, Vera B. Williams, Ben Shahn, Ruth Asawa, Franz Kline, Arthur Penn, Buckminster Fuller, M.C. Richards, Francine du Plessix Gray, Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, Dorothea Rockburne and many others who have made an impact on the world in a significant way. Even now, decades after its closing in 1957, the powerful influence of Black Mountain College continues to reverberate. For more information view our resources.

Staff:
Jeff Arnal, Executive DirectorAlice Sebrell, Program Director
Kate Averett, Outreach Manager
Carissa Pfeiffer, Development Coordinator

Officers:
Don Carson, Chair - Co-Founder + Managing Director, The Ansley Capital Group, Co-Founder + Principal, Cardez Hospitality Group, Director, LOR Inc. + Rollins Holding Company, Singer, Musician
Sydney Green, Vice Chair - Community Volunteer and Small Business Owner
Amanda Wiles, Secretary - Artist
Todd Fowler, Treasurer - CFO, Alfie Investors LLC

Board of Directors:
Helga Beam - Community Volunteer
Connie Bostic - Artist
John Byrd - Attorney
Richard Chess - Roy Carroll Professor of Honors Arts and Sciences at UNC Asheville, Poet and Writer
Curt Cloninger - Associate Professor of New Media, UNC Asheville
Marcia R. Cohen - Professor Emeritus, SCAD Atlanta
John Cram - Owner of Blue Spiral 1, New Morning Gallery, Fine Arts Theatre, Bellagio
Hedy Fischer - Collector, Curator and Cultural Pollinator
Barry Friedlander - Retired Physician
Mary Lynn Kotz - Writer, Author of Rauschenberg: Art and Life
Leigh Maher - LMM Business Consulting, CFO Leaf Festival/GM Lake Eden Events
Michael Manes - Gallery Director, Blue Spiral I
Joseph Pearson - Artist/Activist
Dave Peifer - Professor of Mathematics, UNC Asheville
Carol Pennell - Real Estate Broker
Rob Pulleyn - Ceramicist and Owner, Marshall High Studios
Cherry Lentz Saenger.- Retired Professor
Andy Scott - Special Projects Developer, Warren Wilson College Trustee
Mary Holden Thompson - Director Emerita, Founder
Teresa Swan Tuite - Executive Director of Student Success, Lenoir-Rhyne University
Nan Zander - American Paintings Specialist, General Manager and Auctioneer, Brunk Auctions

Advisory Board:
Emoke B'Racz - Owner and Founder, Malaprop's Bookstore
Jeff Davis - Poet, Computer Network Specialist
Gene Felice - New Media Artist, Teacher
Jean B. Franklin - Co-Owner of Black Mountain Books
Rick Gruber - Director Emeritus, The Ogden Museum of Art
Larry Hopkins - Owner, Ananda Hair Studio
Katie Lee Koven - University Gallery Director, Utah State University
David McConville - President of the Buckminster Fuller Institute
Susan Rhew - Graphic Designer, Susan Rhew Design
Glen Shults - Attorney
Jane Anne Tager - Human Resources Director
Fred Turner - Associate Professor of Communication and Director of the Program in Science, Technology and Society at Stanford University

Can I visit the former Black Mountain College campuses?
The former BMC campuses at YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly and Lake Eden are owned and operated by private organizations. Unfortunately, we cannot offer tours to the general public on a regular basis.

Is parking available at BMCM+AC?
BMCM+AC does not have a dedicated visitor parking lot. Please see this page for parking options in downtown Asheville.

Can I take photos of artwork on display?
Photography is welcome without flash. Please do not reproduce, distribute, or sell your photographs without permission from BMCM+AC.

How do I obtain permissions for image use?
If you would like to use images from our website for personal, educational, non-commercial, or commercial purposes, contact info@blackmountaincollege.org.

How are artists chosen for exhibitions?
BMCM+AC is proud to routinely exhibit the work of Black Mountain College faculty and students, as well as occasionally display the works of today's artists under the influence of BMC. When opportunities arise for working artists to exhibit their work, we will share them through our website and other channels. We also involve local and regional artists in our ongoing event programming. Proposals are accepted year-round to info@blackmountaincollege.org.

How are artists/scholars chosen for the {Re}HAPPENING and the ReVIEWING conference?
As these annual events approach, we issue a call for submissions on our website and through many media outlets. Those submissions are reviewed by a committee and all applicants are notified of their status. Keep your eyes out for these calls, or email us if you have questions. We also involve local and regional artists in our ongoing event programming. Proposals are accepted year-round to info@blackmountaincollege.org.

Does BMCM+AC accept donations of artwork?
We are thrilled to accept donations of art and ephemera from the students and faculty of Black Mountain College. To learn more about donating to our permanent collection, please email info@blackmountaincollege.org.

Can I schedule a guided tour?
We offer guided tours for groups of all ages! Groups of less than 30 are preferred but we do our best to accommodate larger groups as needed. Suggested donation of $10 per person is appreciated. To schedule a tour or get more information please contact tours@blackmountaincollege.org. We advise advanced notice of three weeks or more in order to give you the best experience.

Is BMCM+AC wheelchair accessible?
Our front entrance off of College Street is wheelchair accessible however our door is not automatic, please call (828) 350-8484 and our staff will be happy to assist you. Both our upper and lower galleries are accessible with an elevator available between floors.

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About the Museum - Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center

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The Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (BMCM+AC) preserves and continues the legacy of educational and artistic innovation of Black Mountain College (BMC).

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Create
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Wed, 10/25/2023 - 10:18

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Falcon on the future of AI and H5P, and the results from last month's survey.

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H5P empowers everyone to create, share and reuse interactive content - all you need is a web browser and a web site that supports H5P.

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דף וורד עם פרטים על בית הספר ועל התפישה שלו. 

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דף וורד עם פרטים על בית הספר ועל התפישה שלו. 

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אין עדיין מספיק חומרים על ההתנהלות היומיומית

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תמצית הבלוג של ליסה גיל - מתאר בפירוט את מודל הלמידה של בית הספר

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תמצית הבלוג של ליסה גיל - מתאר בפירוט את מודל הלמידה של בית הספר

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תמצית הבלוג של ליסה גיל 2016

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אוהלו - פרק סיכום

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בשביל מה בית הספר מעבדה

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בשביל מה בית הספר מעבדה

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למידה מבוססת פרוייקט

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למידה מבוססת פרוייקט

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למידה מבוסס פרוייקט

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למידה מבוסס פרוייקט

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Project-Based Learning at Khan Lab School

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המעבר מאקדמיה לבית ספר

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המעבר מאקדמיה לבית ספר

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Khan Lab School reinvents American classroom

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Khan Academy is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere. Khan Academy Kids - our free app for children ages 2 to 7 - was created by experienced early learning experts who have created 22 other top-selling titles and received 22 Parents' Choice Awards, 19 Children's Technology Review Awards, and a KAPi award for Best Children's App at the International Consumer Electronics Show.

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Social & Emotional Learning + Executive Skills - Khan Lab School

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Your web browser does not support the tag. At KLS, we put an intentional focus on the relationships that make up our learning community. Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) is the means by which we formally address and embed the relational aspects of whole child development for all students, beginning in IL1.

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Wir gestalten Schule heute so, wie sie morgen sein sollte. Ist deine Schule bereits im Aufbruch? Lerne unsere Initiative auf diesen Seiten kennen.

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סרט וידאו באנגלית - מכנס בפינלנד

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סרט וידאו באנגלית - מכנס בפינלנד

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Jonathan Rochelle (Google) on Changing school to help students become entrepreneurs | #TNW2019

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ראיון עם מנהל בית הספר הנוכחי באנגלית

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ראיון עם מנהל בית הספר הנוכחי באנגלית

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Agora: A Vision of What is Possible - Keynote #ESA20

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ראיון עם נמייסד בהולנדית עם קטעי וידאו טובים

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ראיון עם נמייסד בהולנדית עם קטעי וידאו טובים

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Werkplek in beeld: Sjef Drummen over de Agora-leerroute op Niekée in Roermond

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סרטונים מבית הספר

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סרטונים מבית הספר

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הרצאה באנגלית של מייסד בית הספר ב - TEDX

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הרצאה באנגלית של מייסד בית הספר ב - TEDX

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The 10 commandments of 21st century learning | Sjef Drummen | TEDxAmsterdamED

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מכתבה - תאור בית הספר ע"י המייסד 

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מכתבה - תאור בית הספר ע"י המייסד 

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Burn down your school and don't build a new one. Don't build a new school: build a paradise, build Disneyland, a research lab, a studio, a monastery and a marketplace all at once. But don't build a school. Don't build classes. Don't build hours. Don't stick to "ages". Don't use grades.

This is how the school of the future looks like. I'm talking about the Agora school, located in Roermond, The Netherlands. And believe it or not, but this school has been educating students since 2013. So, actually, we're already in the future, living in the past with our own traditional education system.

In this blog post, I'll explain to you how this offbeat school works. I interviewed its vice-principal and co-founder (and artist!), Sjef Drummen, and along with my partner in crime we turned up the heat. What's there to know about this school? How does it work? What's so different about it? These (and many more) questions were asked and answered.

The role of the teacher

There are two ways to learn something:

You explain to your students why something is meaningful

You let students decide what is actually meaningful

What we do today is telling the student what they should learn. Students have to shut up and shut down their brain, and once that is done, the teacher can finally start. This means that there's only one person in the entire classroom that's using their brain: the teacher. Wrong.

1. School parent

In the Agoraschool, teachers don't get to be "teachers". Teachers are school mothers or school fathers in charge of their family, which doesn't exceed 17 students. They guide students from the age of 12 to 18. So, the students have a heterogeneous age and a heterogeneous cognition level. This family is their responsibility for the complete school year. This also means that the workload of this school parent concerning stress is zero. So why is this not the standard in every school?

2. Prefrontal cortex replacement

One of the qualities of a good teacher is to invest in a trustworthy relationship with the student. Because of the fact that students have a certain age (which is way younger than a teacher), they lack analytical skills. Their "prefrontal cortex" isn't yet developed enough to take big decisions. And that's where the teacher comes in. The teacher replaces their students' prefrontal cortex and guides them in the right direction. And students accept the teacher's help because of their good relationship and confidence.

3. Teacher qualifications

Can you imagine teaching in this school? What does a teacher there look like? What are the requirements? Well, are you a nice person? Good! Because that's all it takes!

"The quality of the teacher is unconditional love for the child." - Sjef Drummen

Teachers at the Agora school have to make sure students love going to "school", and that these kids are bursting of self-confidence.

A lot of teachers choose to become a teacher because they can work in a very structured way. But here, you have to let things go. That's what they call "agile learning". And this means to adapt your views from day to day.

You can never tell how far you will get tomorrow or in a few months, because learning is a movement: sometimes it goes fast, then slow. The teacher has to be able to adapt to their students' learning processes.

4. The luggage of a 0.0 teacher

To teach in Agora, a teacher carries 3 suitcases with him.

A diamond suitcase, representing a big heart for the students. Give students confidence and tell them they can reach for the stars and achieve anything they want on their own. It is proven that when a teacher creates the best learning environment for 10 years in a row, students' IQ grow with 40 points. So yes, teachers can really create an impact.

A golden suitcase, representing everything on neurology, psychology, science, and how students learn the best.

A lead suitcase, representing a highly radioactive substance that can only be given to students in small measures: knowledge.

After applying the two first suitcases, the student's learning process starts accelerating. Only then, teachers reach out into the third suitcase, causing a nuclear reaction of knowledge.

The role of the student

At Agora, sudents have to set their own challenges. They decide what they learn during the whole year. So, my instant reaction was to ask Sjef whether students have learning goals to work towards. Not even that. They just have one goal: "To succeed in life".

A lot of students find out themselves that if they don't do anything, they won't succeed. It takes insight to get there at the end of the year.

The students take the steering wheel in their own hands. They have to steer the car in the right direction, and the teacher is only their driving instructor. And while driving, learning happens. Spark their curiosity, and they will find what they need to succeed. Don't put roadblocks when you want them to go the other way; let them discover this by themselves. Students can build wings on their car to fly over those roadblocks. They'll get there... and you have to let them get there.

"In the new world that's ahead of us, not knowing is more important than knowing" - Sjef Drummen "All Nobel prize winners discovered something that wasn't discovered yet. They used their imagination and "not knowing" to know something."

How Agora works

As you probably get by now, the Agora school in Roermond isn't just an ordinary school. It's not really a school: it has no goals, no classes, no tests, no homework, no grades, no... So you must be wondering how Agora works (I did!)

1. The detox program

There are many students coming to the Agora school that have been damaged so bad for the past 8 years in education. They think they are too dumb to succeed in anything.

These students need to be detoxed. You need to bring them in a situation where they feel confident and let them believe they can manage things. As soon as they realize they really can accomplish something, they come in a phase that they also want to learn new things. They'll start setting new goals and new challenges from intrinsic motivation. And that's the most important motivation there is.

The detox program also teaches them the importance of focus when setting their own goals and when learning.

The program starts in the beginning of their school career in Agora, and ends 7 weeks later. In these 7 weeks, students have to know what they want to become. Even if the chances of their dream job are so rare, at least, they have focus now. They have a goal. And it doesn't matter if something comes on their road that changes their focus, as long as they replace it with a new focus.

2. Challenges

So what exactly are these challenges that students choose? Well, a challenge can be anything! Something students find interesting to research. Starting from there, the Agora school uses the students' interests and motivation to encourage them to look further. What do they want to become? What do they have to learn to become that?

Through their passion and interests, students also learn how to learn. That's why they can finish these challenges all by themselves.

Since there are no goals in this school, how is it possible for students to know when the challenge is finished? Well, there are a few things to consider here.

First of all, students have to appoint the "why" of every challenge. "Why do I want to do this challenge?", "Why do I want to learn this?" Initially, students will say "I like to learn about horses, because I like them." This is the most simple explanation of a challenge. But after a while that student will start saying "I want to learn about horses, because I want to start my own riding school". Here, the student is delving into the challenge much more than before.

Working with challenges opens up the possibility to work with individual learning paths for every student. No more methodology for one complete average group. "Because average students don't exist." - Sjef Drummen

For every challenge, students formulate the definition of "done". When is their challenge finished? They also define their challenges with a learning question and sub-questions. Most of the time, those learning questions lead to new topics they want to investigate and so, new challenges. Via technology, the schoolparents can follow up on them and their progress and give advice.

They encourage students to make mistakes, because that's the best way to learn. Copying is also an effective way to learn. Look at how another person does something.

3. Masterclasses

You could say that it's not easy for students to find that one thing they're passionate about. I myself only found out a few months before the deadline that I was interested in Communications. Only much later I realized I also wanted to become a teacher.

In the Agoraschool, students can participate in Masterclasses, completely voluntarily. So, when there's a masterclass about Sebastian Bach, everyone who likes to go, goes, and others don't. This is the right way to encourage students to learn.

"Everything you enforce, leads to demotivation. Focusing on knowledge, leads to demotivation. But focusing on motivation, leads to knowledge" - Sjef Drummen

4. Technology

Technology is a very important component in this school. Because of technology, it's possible for every school to offer hundreds of different learning paths.

That's why Agora is a 1 to 1 school, and that's why it offers every student a device for free. Financially, this is a big cost to carry. But ethically, it shouldn't matter in education whether you're poor or rich: every student should have the same opportunities.

"There's only one factor that decides if students enroll in higher education. The salary of their parents." - Sjef Drummen

Agora gets the same money as any other school. Only, they spend it on technology, instead of books. The things you can do with technology are unimaginable, and every school should embrace it.

5. Learning 0.0

We're all conditioned by our "old" education system, prohibiting us to think differently. The educational model is over 100 years old. Sure, it was effective ... in that time.

Now, there's truly nothing you can't learn. Students can tap into the collective brain lobe of humanity with a smartphone for free. So, why do other schools forbid this small device?

That's why the Agora school started "Learning 0.0". You have to bring back students and teachers, and rid them from all the institutional nonsense that crawled into our educational system many years ago.

So ask yourself: why are teachers the boss? Why do students sit in classes? Why do students have to listen to teachers, and not the other way around? Why do we have courses? A class schedule? Why do we have tests and homework? It's all rubbish, and you don't need it.

Every teacher knows, even without testing their students, every student's capabilities, strengths and weaknesses. So why should you put a grade on it, and do hours of grading work, when you know what the result will be?

"The teachers are the victims of this system. They are immensely conditioned and create a false safety by giving grades. So they "really" know if students meet the benchmarks" - Sjef Drummen

But knowledge isn't the key here. The key is that students are progressing. If a student first got a four, and later he gets an eight, that's much better than a student that gets sixes all the time. A student with an average of 8 but zero social skills can go to medical school, while a student with an average of 7.5 and a lot of social skills can't. This is a waste of human capital, and it has to stop.

If you want to dig deeper into formative assessment and the abolishment of grades, here are some good articles that will help you out:

6. Formative assessment

So, Agora doesn't test, nor grade. But that doesn't mean students are completely left alone. They're practically haunted by their schoolparent, and get feedback all the time. A student can always take the initiative to make diagnostic tests, with the emphasis on "initiative": the student has to ask for it, and has to want it.

A day in Agora

Teachers arrive at school at 8am, and have a team meeting. Students arrive at 9am, which is neurological much better than to start earlier. Then, students start with a "dialogue" in their own "schoolfamily", where they debate and talk about certain topics (for example, Trump and Kim Jong-Un's meeting).

At 9:30 am, students start working at their own personal challenges, or they choose to attend masterclasses (often given by parents). Last year, the school offered 283 masterclasses to students with diverse subjects, from astrology to martial arts.

Students have sports two hours a week, and after the lunch break they have 30 minutes of "silence". During these 30 minutes, everyone has to be quiet. No mobile devices, no talking. Students can take a power nap (for maximum 12 minutes), read a book, listen to their breathing and meditate. 99 Percent of the students choose to read.

After the silent break, students go on with masterclasses or challenges. At 2:30 pm, students may go home without any homework. You often see that students find the motivation to go on with their challenges at home, without being forced to do this.

From 2:30pm until 4:30pm, the schoolparents or teachers consult with each other about the students and their progress, learning paths, and so on.

Not a school

As the first paragraph already gave away, this school isn't a school: it's a paradise. The agora school doesn't have long hallways with little classrooms. It's something like you've never seen before.

In the 21st century, the number one skill everybody should have is creativity. This school is designed to stimulate students to be creative: students get to create their own comfortable (or not so comfortable) workspaces; they use their creativity to design amazing desks; ... The school has all the tools and workplaces available to spark creativity. Agora also lets students create their personal workspaces because it wants to take away boundaries: boundaries between their students' home, streets, school and their virtual environment. Students need to feel at home in their learning environment.

The Agora school listens to the science and psychology of the student. Only those aspects of education that listen to the psychology of the student, survive. And let me tell you: there aren't many.

You don't have to renovate education, you have to reinvent it. Renovation is like changing wooden wheels to rubber wheels. Reinvention is creating flying cars. And that's what the Agora school did.

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How to build the school of the future - An interview with Sjef Drummen

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Burn down your school and don't build a new one. Don't build a new school: build a paradise, build Disneyland, a research lab, a studio, a monastery and a marketplace all at once. But don't build a school. Don't build classes. Don't build hours. Don't stick to "ages". Don't use grades.

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האתר הרישמי של בית הספר - בגרמנית

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האתר הרישמי של בית הספר - בגרמנית

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Diese Webseite verwendet nur Session-Cookies. Weitere Informationen finden Sie in unserer Datenschutzerklärung

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דבר אחד שהייתי לוקח מכל בית ספר

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דבר אחד שהייתי לוקח מכל בית ספר

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יולי תמיר
שי פירון
איל דורון

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סרט טוב שלי באנגלית

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סרט טוב שלי באנגלית

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Democratic Education & Education Cities - Yaacov Hecht

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הסרט הברזילאי....חומרים מצויינים מתוך בית ספר

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הסרט הברזילאי....חומרים מצויינים מתוך בית ספר

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שיחה עם ריטה

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שיחה עם ריטה

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Democratic School of Hadera, Israel - Rita

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אני במוק של מיכאל וציקו

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אני במוק של מיכאל וציקו

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היכנס או צור חשבון | IL קמפוס

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יש לשים לב: צוות התמיכה של IL קמפוס דובר עברית, ערבית ואנגלית. למרות מאמצנו לתת מענה בכל שפה לשאלותיך, תשובתנו יהיו בשלוש השפות הנ"ל.

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וידאו בהולנדית עם תמונות מתוך בית הספר

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וידאו בהולנדית עם תמונות מתוך בית הספר

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צוות הפקה הגיע מברזיל עד לחדרה כדי לצלם סרט על בית הספר הדמוקרטי

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בוגר בית הספר

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בוגר בית הספר

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FerminChaytion | Chayton Thompson | Green Stone 2020 | Green School Bali

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מבנה המערכת שעות - זמן

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מבנה המערכת שעות - זמן

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Ausführliche Informationen zu unseren Lernformaten hier: Neue Lernformate

Epochenunterricht
Um das konzentrierte Lernen für einen überschaubaren Zeitraum zu ermöglichen, ist das Schuljahr in der Verbindungsstufe nicht in zwei Halbjahre, sondern in 5. Epochen geteilt. Eine Epoche umfasst den Zeitraum von den Ferien zu Ferien. So wird das Schuljahr, statt zu einem „Marathon" zu mehreren kleinen „Sprints".

Übersicht der 5. Epochen: Epochen.pdf

Podcast Epochenunterricht

Lernraum: Der Lernraum ist eine Unterrichtsform für die Fächer Deutsch, Mathematik, Englisch und findet klassenintern statt. Im Lernraum bearbeiten die Schüler*innen täglich selbstständig bzw. kooperativ Themenbausteine. Es erfolgt bei Bedarf eine Einführung und Begleitung durch die/den anwesende*n Fachlehrer*in. Die Lernbausteine orientieren sich am Berliner Rahmenlehrplan. Sie werden selbstständig bzw. kooperativ von den Schüler*innen differenziert, d.h. entlang eines vorher festgelegten Lernpfades, bearbeitet. Nach Abschluss eines Bausteins erfolgt ein Leistungsnachweis, z.B. durch Präsentationen, mündliche und/ oder schriftliche Tests.

Projektunterricht: Projekte sind zentrale Elemente des Unterrichts an der ESBZ und werden fächerübergreifend zu bestimmten Themen und im Rahmen des Lehrplans bis Jg. 13 konzipiert. Sie können in einer Klasse, in einem Team oder teamübergreifend stattfinden. In den Jahrgängen 7-11 gibt es einmal in der Woche 6 Unterrichtsstunden einen Projekttag. Der Projektunterricht findet zu mind. 80% im Teamteaching mit zwei Lehrer*innen statt. Wöchentlich gibt es pro Halbjahr im Wechsel das Projekt Geografie-Biologie-Politik und das Geschichte-Religion Projekt.

Kommunikationsbänder: Anstelle von vereinzelten Terminen im wöchentlichen Stundenplan, bietet dieses Lernband die Möglichkeit über den Zeitraum einer Epoche (4-5 Wochen), zwei Mal jeweils für vier Stunden wöchentlich intensiv eine (Fach-) Sprache (auch Mathe und Visuelles Denken sind "Sprachen") zu trainieren. Es gibt zwei Kommunikationsbänder mit jeweils vier Unterrichtsstunden und sowohl Pflicht- als auch Wahlmöglichkeiten.

Praxisband: Das Praxisband rückt das Handeln und Erleben in den Vordergrund. Es zielt auf das praktische Tun ab. Es ist ist ein wichtiger Bestandteil des rhythmisierten Ganztages. Im Schuljahr 2020/2021 haben die Schüler*innen sechs Stunden pro Epoche ein Praxisband. Im Praxisband wird im neuen Schuljahr der ästhetische Bereich angeboten (Kunst, Holz- und/ oder Musiktheater) sowie Physik und Chemie. Podcast Praxisband

Freiraum: Alle Jugendlichen in den Jahrgangsstufen 7-11 erhalten einmal in der Woche "Freiraum", um sich handwerklich-technisch, sportlich-bewegungsreich, künstlerisch-gestalterisch oder naturwissenschaftlich-experimentier- freudig auszuprobieren, zu entdecken oder inspiriert zu werden. Mit diesem Fach wollen wir einen wichtigen Beitrag leisten, alle wertvollen Anlagen der Schülerinnen und Schüler zur vollen Entfaltung bringen zu können. In der Verbindungsstufe haben die Schüler*innen zweieinhalb Stunden. Die Pädagog*innen bieten dazu ein vielfältiges Freiraum-Angebot, das die Jugendlichen für ein bis vier Jahre wählen.

Projekt Verantwortung (PV): Das Projekt Verantwortung ist zentrales Element der Lernkultur der ESBZ. Hier engagieren sich die Jugendlichen im Umfeld ihrer Schule sozial, ökologisch oder politisch in einem selbst ausgewählten Projekt oder einem der angeboten PV-Formate (Klima-, Bildungsbotschafter*innen, Wohlfühlräume gestalten, Schulsanitäter...).

Werkstätten: In der Verbindungsstufe kann eine Werkstatt gewählt werden für ein Schuljahr. Hier treffen sich Jugendliche, die ähnliche Neigungen haben. Durch die freie Werkstattwahl sollen sich die Jugendlichen ihrer Stärken bewusst werden, sie sichtbar machen und auf diese Weise positiv gefördert und stabilisiert werden. Die Werkstattangebote sind vielfältig. Sie stammen vor allem aus den Bereichen Musisch-Künstlerisches, Bewegung, Forschen und Agenda 21. Auch außerschulische Expert*innen (auch Eltern) oder Schüler*innen leiten Werkstätten.

Alle ins Ausland: Im Jahrgang 11 gehen alle Schüler*innen für drei Monate in ein Land ihrer WahlDie Schüler*innen engagieren sich in dieser Zeit in einem sozialen, ökologischen oder vergleichbaren Projekt. Die Erfahrungen werden im Anschluss an den Auslandsaufenthalt im Rahmen von Reflexionstagen aufgearbeitet und unmittelbar danach der Schulgemeinde und allen anderen Interessierten präsentiert.

Tutorgespräche: Regelmäßig (mind. alle zwei Wochen) findet ein Gespräch zwischen Tutor*in und dem/der Jugendlichen statt, bei dem der Lernfortschritt, die Ziele der Woche, Unterstützungsbedarf, die Führung des Logbuchs, Fragen und Anregungen besprochen werden.

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Ausführliche Informationen zu unseren Lernformaten hier: Neue Lernformate Epochenunterricht Um das konzentrierte Lernen für einen überschaubaren Zeitraum zu ermöglichen, ist das Schuljahr in der Verbindungsstufe nicht in zwei Halbjahre, sondern in 5. Epochen geteilt. Eine Epoche umfasst den Zeitraum von den Ferien zu Ferien. So wird das Schuljahr, statt zu einem „Marathon" zu mehreren kleinen „Sprints".

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סרט וידאו ללא מילים

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סרט וידאו ללא מילים

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDO_n8OPjOg

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hVvX7pXXoc

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Independent Education | Information, news articles & comment on quality and private education

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Education has the power to transform individuals, communities and societies.

As educators, we hold onto all the successful methods of education passed down to us from many years of accumulated practical wisdom, but we must also continuously adapt, alter and even transform our educational practices because without doing so, we become stagnant and irrelevant. I visited the Evangelische Schule Berlin Zentrum (ESBZ) in Germany to observe its innovations first-hand. It's a dynamic educational environment relevant for our times, where management, teachers and learners are challenged to live and learn boldly yet humbly. It's a young school, barely 11 years old, founded by renowned educational innovator Margret Rasfeld in 2007,1 using the buildings of a former communist East Berlin state school. ESBZ is a real 'innovation laboratory'. In their efforts to reimagine and rethink high school education, ESBZ's educators have implemented a number of alternative educational methods and features.
Timetable innovations
One of the most remarkable features I noticed was the structure and nature of the learning periods. In junior high, grades 7-9 are taught in mixedage groups. These groups may change from day to day according to the choices learners make, and the practical matter of space availability in classrooms. Every morning from Monday to Friday, pupils 'sign up' for a 90-minute period in one of their core subjects: German, English, mathematics or nature in society. By the end of the week, every pupil must have attended each of these four subjects at least once. Pupils choose themes of work and start answering questions independently. All content themes are broken down into work tasks, with sources readily available in class. Working individually or in small groups, learners complete these tasks, reading required information and explanations, discussing relevant topics, and answering questions in writing. It might take a week or longer to complete each of these themes. New themes of work are available once all tasks have been completed. This thematic structure is called bausteine - building blocks - which the teacher oversees while groups do different work, and individuals complete tasks at their own pace. Every theme culminates in a summative assessment that each learner writes as they are ready. If passed, this results in the pupil being credited with a certificate of completion for that particular theme of work. Pupils must accumulate a prescribed minimum number of certificates for each of the four mentioned subjects each term. When the required number of certificates have been earned, the pupil 'passes' that subject in that term. Learners take responsibility for their efforts and academic outcomes, being held accountable for completing themes and accumulating certificates. The school operates on the belief that every student has an intrinsic motivation to learn - an internal 'engine' that propels them to complete tasks without undue punishment or even reward. Like all adolescents, some socialise or get distracted. At any point, though, the teacher can request to see a learner's log book, which is a record of their work for every period. Learners are required to set goals for themselves for the week, following up to see if they were able to achieve them. Similar to the Dalton school method,2 these periods give learners freedom of choice within the limits of this system. Other timetabled subject choices include science, sport, religion and social responsibility. There are also school periods set aside for projects and reading hours.
Life challenge
Grades 7-9 learners are required to organise their own threeweek Life Challenge trip outside of Berlin. On this trip, they must do something adventurous or challenging, or something that benefits the community in some way. Parents provide a budget of €150 for the three weeks, i.e. €50 per week, which includes costs for all transport, accommodation, activities and food. Learners must plan the whole thing, making all their own arrangements while budgeting their money carefully. Learners decide which of their classmates will accompany them, then they write a proposal, and present this to their teacher for approval. The school provides a number of options supervised by social workers or parent volunteers, including working and staying on a farm, a church-sponsored youth camp in France, or hiking over the Alps for three weeks, cooking their own food and staying in tents along the journey. Many learners go somewhere interesting and offer to work in exchange for a place to stay. This negotiation starts from the planning stages. For example, in a recent year, a group wanted to go sailing on the Bodensee, but did not have sufficient funds in their budget to hire the sailing boat and required equipment. Parents not being permitted to cover these additional costs, the group managed to successfully negotiate with boat owners to work on their boats as unpaid deckhands in exchange for a few days of sailing at their own leisure. A Grade 8 boy explained how he and two friends were arranging a bike trip from Berlin to Amsterdam - a distance of 650 km - for their life challenge trip. They would be cycling with backpacks and a tent, planning all their stopover points along the way, then return to Berlin by train. I asked him why they chose to go that far. He answered that the last year they had gone to a town a mere 300 km away and realised how they had totally underestimated themselves, they could go so much further. They felt so excited and empowered to do something they never thought they would be able to. One group travelled with adult volunteers to the southern part of Turkey along the border with Syria, where they built playgrounds for children in a refugee camp. Learners return to school exhausted but exhilarated. They report back to the rest of the junior high students about their experiences, reflecting on how they overcame obstacles, what personal discoveries they made, and how these achievements altered their perspectives.
Community school
ESBZ is one of a small number of schools in a pilot project launched by the Berlin senate, namely Gemeinschaftsschule or community schools. The secondary school landscape in Germany is dominated by the prestigious gymnasien - highperforming academic schools focusing on the respected Arbitur qualification - as well as two other types of school, realschule and hauptschule, which are vocational and general high schools respectively. However, community schools like ESBZ offer an alternative, where learners still have the opportunity to write Arbitur examinations in the senior high or upper secondary school.
Classroom Berlin
Teachers take advantage of the many educational opportunities of Berlin's excellent museums, galleries and historical sites to extend learning experiences beyond the classroom and to constantly engage and challenge learners. Short outings are common at ESBZ and other schools because of the ease, affordability and extent of public transport throughout the city. Moreover, learners are mobile and move about independently to and from school from a young age.
Experimental learning formats
One of the school's experimental formats is called Pulsar weeks - innovative multidisciplinary learning exercises in the upper secondary school. Pulsar weeks take place several times per year, where learners and teachers stay after school to engage with curriculum topics, ideas and subject content in fresh ways. Learners attend presentations, discussions and practical workshops. Topics must be relevant to the Abitur curriculum, but in ways that are future-oriented, meaningful, interdisciplinary and appropriate to real-world experiences. Examples of some Pulsar topics are:

* "From mirrors to holograms" (combines specific elements of the Abitur mathematics and physics curricula)

* "DEXIT" (a variation of the Brexit theme; what if Deutschland had to exit the European Union? Combines elements of the history, political science and geography curricula)

* "How the universe functions, and how humans can 'technically' adjust to it" (combines elements of information technology and physics).

Another experimental learning format is known as learning expedition. These are designed for independent research, learning or skill development in upper secondary learners. They resemble one research tasks (ORTs)3 that some independent schools in South Africa offer to matric students. Besides some similarities, a number of differences exist. Learners must develop their own topic and aim of research while taking responsibility to complete this research independently; formulating a learning objective while sticking to a specific required format, then documenting this and reflecting on their learning. This resembles the "hypothesis/research question, methodology and written analysis" process required for ORTs. The intention is to deepen learners' knowledge and competence in a self-selected subject. They also differ from research tasks in other ways. They include the possibility for skills development in chosen vocations beyond simply knowing or understanding. Whereas ORTs deepen understanding of the research process together with specifically acquired theoretical knowledge from the sources and actual research, learning expeditions allow for rigorous, practical learning. A third format is known as LAK - Lern und Arbeits Kompetenz - life skills for learning and work. Similar to life orientation, themes include:

* drug awareness

* stress management

* finding your first apartment

* basic entrepreneur course

* how to file your tax return

* relaxation techniques.

As a life orientation teacher myself, this confirms to me the absolute relevance of the subject in South African schools, just as it is in a German school. At ESBZ, this format was specifically created to address the real and practical life skills needs of learners. It goes beyond the requirements of examinable subjects. I found it noteworthy that in South Africa we have heard calls to scrap life orientation as a subject altogether,4 while an innovative school like ESBZ is finding ways to bring it into the school. South African life orientation teachers must ensure this subject remains relevant by regularly adapting content and appealing to real needs of learners. "The current complex and global challenges require a paradigm shift in society and education," says Rasfeld, and based on such thinking and what I learned at ESBZ, I have the following general recommendations for any school interested in fostering or implementing innovative educational ideas.
Become an innovation laboratory
The first and most obvious recommendation I have is to adopt the mindset of an innovator. Encourage discussions and critical rethinking, challenge existing teaching practices, seek out fresh insights and new ideas. This is a risk, because new formats or techniques could backfire and fail. Often educators and parents are risk-averse, but to be an innovative school means you will need to take this risk.
Challenge, stretch and empower teachers
To innovate, you need to empower educators to devise and implement their new ideas. Empower teachers with the freedom to make mistakes, learn from them, then modify and improve upon them. We need communities of educators who challenge each other's thinking, continually sharpening each other in the process. To adequately prepare learners for the future, it is teachers who must extend and stretch themselves, and be in a school environment where this is fostered. Continuing professional teacher development (CPTD) can be a good place to start, but schools' primary motivation for training shouldn't be the earning of points5 but rather to truly stretch educators who are thought leaders, innovators and risk-takers. There must be an educationally innovative atmosphere for teachers at school.
Challenge, stretch and empower learners
Learners have an innate motivation to learn and grow, to be creative and try new things. They need motivated and dedicated teachers to metaphorically push, pull and stretch them. But we must not underestimate our learners' ability to manage and think for themselves. Under the wise and benevolent guidance of sympathetic and enthusiastic teachers, school learners must be empowered to become more active in critical thinking, taking the initiative, conflict resolution and change management.
Provide for diversity
Learning to live together means creating spaces where we allow others not only to survive or co-exist, but to thrive. Sharing our lives together in a school community, we must provide for racial diversity in all the practical ways necessary in South Africa - but in addition, as independent schools, we must maintain an awareness of our communities' relative socio-economic privilege and not live in 'suburban bubbles'. Learning to live together in South Africa means that we must come out of that bubble, learning to talk other cultural or experiential 'languages' with empathy and patience. Diversity also means we must look beyond the prevailing cultural language of materialism.
Real world educational skills
ESBZ's Pulsar format taught me that teachers can integrate the stringent curricular requirements of the German Abitur course with real-world experiences and skills. Seeking education with real applications, connections and skills prevents the too-narrow focus of production-line teaching towards final examinations only.
Real-world survival skills
Life orientation must continue to be the vital subject that it is intended to be. Learners need to be exposed to real life skills encompassing everything from financial literacy, relationship advice, study and self-management skills, and community service to sustainable living on planet Earth. Life orientation teachers must continue to take their roles and subjects seriously, advancing their subject, while schools must oppose all efforts to discontinue or diminish the subject.
Education as responsible adventure
For teenagers, education must be a journey of adventure, discovery, self-actualisation and empowerment. Building on the age-old virtues of self-discipline, work ethic and moral guidance, schools must be places to harbour and facilitate both education as adventure and education as responsibility. Learning to live together, learning to act, learning real-life survival skills must be challenging and exciting.
The impact of ethical empowerment
Schools must be places of idealism and purpose. At ESBZ, I observed learning and format innovations that stem from shared values of inclusivity, moral courage, social awareness, thoughtful and diverse community building, and a welcoming of others, including refugees. Schools' willingness to become innovation laboratories requires intellectual initiative and courage. Schools must never be cynical places - which could include the cynicism of materialism and social exclusion. My visit to ESBZ showed me the impact a community of empowered teachers and learners can have when stretched outside their educational and social comfort zones. In this way, schools can better prepare learners with real-life knowledge, as well as the curriculum's summative outcomes. Life skills are vital for coping in our ever-mutable and inconsistent world. I am convinced of the enduring value of a subject like life orientation, but teachers must keep it relevant and engaging. In German, the word for education is bildung - a concept where formation and cultivation are crucial elements in the process of shaping and educating a person. I believe teachers must continually shape their own methods, too, reviving their impact with innovations in an ongoing process of learning, teaching and relearning.
Kyle Lauf teaches life orientation and business studies at Assumption Convent in Germiston, Johannesburg, Gauteng.
References:
1. See: https://www.ashoka.org/en/fellow/margret-rasfeld
2. See: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Dalton-Plan
3. See: http://intranet.oakhill.co.za/pluginfile.php/3866/mod_resource/content/0/IEB_Generic_Guidelines_Research_Task_Project.pdf
4. See: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/emmeline-de-chazal/heres-why-the-lifeorientation-syllabus-needs-a-makeover_a_23023643/
5. See: https://regent.ac.za/study-educational-management-and-leadership-andearn-cptd-points/

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Bildung at a school in Germany: The ESBZ School in Berlin | Independent Education

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Education has the power to transform individuals, communities and societies. As educators, we hold onto all the successful methods of education passed down to us from many years of accumulated practical wisdom, but we must also continuously adapt, alter and even transform our educational practices because without doing so, we become stagnant and irrelevant.

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EduAction / Margret Rasfeld, Peter Spiegel (E-Book)

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EduAction Wir machen Schule Erschienen im April 2012, 263 Seiten, gebunden, mit Schutzumschlag Mit einer Einleitung von Gerald Hüther Eine Schule mitten in Berlin. Sie steht für den Aufbruch in eine neue Ära. Hier hat das neue Lernen schon begonnen.

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For decades, before it became a blight on the city landscape, the massive Sears building in Memphis was a symbol of what the "Bluff City" might one day become.

Built during the Roaring Twenties, with a vivid art-deco exterior and mre than one million square feet of space, the building was a monument to the Golden Era of retail - Amazon, before Amazon. It served as the parent company's distribution center for the mid-South - a labyrinth of hoppers, runners, chutes and conveyor belts, and a beehive of activity in which trucks were loaded up on one side of the building, and trains on the other. But on weekends, it was the place Memphians would dress up to go shopping amid the din of a thousand footsteps, each floor a living museum of the things that filled the pages of their heavily dog-eared Sears catalogues - the "Dream Book" - in which Americans of all classes and colors imagined new lives and new possibilities.

Its scale and grandeur was a fitting development for a city that was becoming, through early musical pioneers like W.C. Handy, early recording studios like Sun, and early bacchanalian destinations like Beale Street, a cultural capital of the entire country.

And yet, over time, Memphis's promise of a more desirable future gradually gave way to the weight of its undesirable past.

A century earlier, the Bluff City - so named for the land once known as the fourth Chickasaw Bluff, located on the Mississippi River at the edge of Tennessee's southwestern tip - had been known as "the Charleston of the West" because of its dependence on cotton and slaves for economic growth. In the decades since, that legacy had extended across generations of Memphians via deeply entrenched citywide systems of race-based inequality.

When the United States Supreme Court tried to address the depth of the harm, in 1954, by ruling that segregated schools anywhere were an unconstitutional affront everywhere, the city of Memphis responded not by integrating, but by expanding east - towards its fleeing white residents, and away from its black ones. The result was a distended municipal footprint of more than three hundred square miles, larger than even New York City's, yet with a total population more than twelve times smaller.

There were other efforts to course-correct. In 1972, a federal judge ordered citywide busing to help bring about more integrated schools, but that only sparked a second wave of white flight, and a doubling of private school enrollment. And then there was the global tragedy from four years earlier, in 1968, when the city's mostly-black sanitation workers protested the death of two of their brethren, crushed to death by a malfunctioning truck, and the country's preeminent civil rights activist, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., came to show his support for their cause.

"We've got to give ourselves to this struggle until the end," he told them the night before he was murdered on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, setting off a chain reaction of nationwide conflagrations. "Nothing would be more tragic than to stop at this point in Memphis. We've got to see it through."

How do you provide integrated services to a segregated citizenry?

How do you confront past harms in ways that lead to actual healing?

And how do you set the conditions that can actually shrink the opportunity gaps between a city's residents, and not widen them?

The short answer, in too many places, is that you can't: privilege begets privilege. Poverty begets poverty. And the dollars will follow the (white) flight.

At least that's what happened in Memphis. So when Sears decided to build a different flagship store, closer to the city's relocated white center, the regal building at the intersection of Cleveland and Poplar Streets fell into disrepair.

Within ten years, the neighborhood had fallen off the map for most Memphians. And by the end of the twentieth century, the Sears building sagged like a soggy sarcophagus - too big to be imploded, and too blighted to spark anyone's creative reimagining of what else it might become.

As any Memphian will tell you, this storyline is part of the city's shared identity. "When things are good, my wife and I don't talk about it much; they're just good," explained Todd Richardson, an art history professor and Memphian since 2008. "But when they're bad, we talk about it a lot, and how to make things better. That's like Memphis - we've been talking about how bad it is for so many years. We forget to talk about what's good."

That began to change in 2009, when Richardson and Christopher Miner, a musician, writer and visual artist, were asked by the derelict building's new owner to offer their input on how it might be rehabilitated around his primary passions, arts and education.

Richardson, a bespectacled dreamer with no development experience whatsoever, remembered feeling emboldened because of the impossibility of the request. "The building had become such an immovable symbol of what was wrong with Memphis," he explained. "Because it was so big, no one could ever come up with an idea that could literally or figuratively fill the space. So we started having those 'wouldn't it be cool if ...' conversations that led to other things. And what we started to realize is that we didn't want to look at the building as a space to be filled, but as an opportunity to create a new neighborhood. And if that opportunity was to have a chance at succeeding, then the whole project had to use arts and culture as a catalyst for change.

"The biggest challenge was getting people to see beyond what they saw."

So Richardson, Miner and their partners organized live concerts and exhibitions, sponsored dance performances, and staged poetry slams. They invited people to make art, wonder out loud, and wander the building's abandoned hallways taking photographs and video, again and again. And in time, a collective question emerged: What if the Sears building could become a city within the city, one in which the intersecting virtues of arts, education and wellness found equal footing? And what if, at the center of that miniature city, there was that most familiar bedrock of any community's shared destiny - a public high school?

Much to the city's, and Richardson's, surprise, the idea started to take actual shape. Construction teams, intentionally and eclectically recruited so the project would both reflect and enlist Memphis's many communities, began saw-cutting through five miles of concrete, installing more than thirty miles of sprinkler piping, and repointing more than seven million bricks - enough to stretch all the way from Memphis to New Orleans when laid end-to-end. And students, parents, and educators from across the city began participating in community conversations of what a new school in an old building should actually look like, and be like, and do.

In time, after a total investment of $210 million, the building received the commitment of forty founding tenants - primarily a mixture of arts, education and healthcare non-profits. And in 2017, almost a decade after the first 'what if's' were uttered, it re-opened as Crosstown Concourse, a "vertical urban village" in which 1,500 people would work, 500 would live, and an inaugural class of 150 freshmen would walk, bike, or ride their way to the city's newest public high school:

Crosstown High. Home of the Explorers.

Ginger Spickler was there for Crosstown Concourse's opening day, just as she had been there for every step of Crosstown High's inaugural design. In fact, its arrival owed as much to her as any other Memphian - and its creation was a process that, for Spickler at least, had been years in the making.

Alert, intense, and astute, Spickler started paying close attention to the bevy of public and private school options in her county, nearly 400 in all, when her oldest son was still in diapers. Like many American cities, Memphis was awash in school choices, but what Spickler discovered, as she put it, was that "if you wanted to choose another school than the one you were registered for, you had to know that system. And up to this point in Memphis's history, that fact has overwhelmingly been to the benefit of the families who are well-informed."

So Spickler called school principals, visited school websites, and attended school open houses. What she learned confirmed her initial sense that her neighborhood school was the best fit for her family. She also learned how pervasively her city's unjust past was still shaping present-day conditions for its residents. "There are vast gaps in the educational experience kids in Memphis schools are getting," she explained, "sometimes even within single schools. One out of every three of our children is living in poverty, and we have a deep legacy, going back to past periods of white flight into either private schools or public 'optional' schools in which 'higher achieving' - read: more privileged - students receive better teachers, materials and opportunities, while our city's poorest children and families are all concentrated in the other schools, and in more traditional - read: less engaging and interesting - tracks. It's like a storm cloud is stuck hovering over our heads and ensuring that the local weather pattern can never change."

To try and counter the information and opportunity gap, Spickler created Memphis School Guide, an online and in-print compendium of information to help parents navigate their school options. And yet as years passed, and her son and others like him neared middle- and high-school age, Spickler saw the dearth of high-quality options in those higher grades. "My biggest takeaway from all the work was that there was no real diversity in the type of learning happening at the different schools in Memphis. Different schools had different resources and different demographics, for sure, but everyone was basically doing the same old Stand and Deliver model of instruction. People were looking for something different that just didn't exist in our city."

Then Spickler heard about what was happening in the old Sears building - and that the developers wanted the space to be anchored by a public high school. So she reached out to other institutions in the city that were doing interesting work with young people, and began organizing meetings at which they could ask kids and families directly what they wanted to see more (and less) of in their ideal school. "Instead of starting with a predetermined vision that we were working towards," she said, "our process was one of discovery."

What they discovered was largely intuitive - and yet, largely absent in the city's public and private schools.

We don't just want to sit and listen, the students explained. We want to do stuff.

We don't just want to learn alongside people who look and think like us, they said. We want our classrooms to be as diverse as our city.

And we want the work that we do to matter, now, in the world we all share.

When Richardson heard what Spickler was uncovering, he sensed a perfect match for the kind of culture he hoped would take root in the Concourse. "I had a lot of unconscious assumptions about what a school was supposed to look like," Richardson confessed. "But the students were painting a picture of a place that was designed more like a basecamp than a container. They weren't asking us to do the simple math of figuring out how many classrooms you need in order to evenly distribute young people across a fixed number of spaces; they were asking us to design a place that was agile, and emergent, and fluid."

What if the future of the American classroom isn't even a classroom?

As more and more community members offered their input, the initial processes of Crosstown High became clear: spatially, a physical design that could make it easy for folks to be collaborative and interdisciplinary; structurally, a flexible school schedule that could foster sustained partnerships with fellow Concourse tenants, whose workplaces could provide rich and real-world learning opportunities for students; culturally, a commitment to recruit a student body that was fully reflective of the city; and pedagogically, an emphasis on mastering higher-order thinking skills via project-based and socially embedded assessments of student learning.

"What are the essentials for a thriving community?" Spickler asked. "How do you repair a city fractured by injustice and inequality? And what does it mean to reimagine education for a changing world? Those became the questions our school would try to answer."

To get there, the school hired Chris Terrill as its founding executive director. A veteran educator with a salt and pepper goatee, close-cropped hair, and the self-awareness to not always put himself at the center of the work, Terrill knew that for Crosstown High to be successful, he'd need to recruit an inaugural faculty that was willing to rethink everything about teaching and learning.

"There are roughly 31,000 high schools in America," Terrill told them at the first faculty meeting of the year. "99.5% of those schools are doing things very much the same way. That works for some students - it worked for most of us - and now here we are as teachers.

"But times have changed. Things are different. We've asked you to do something that hasn't been done in Memphis. We don't know everything - as a matter of fact we know very little about the scheme of how this whole thing will unfold over time. But the key to our success long term is going to be for each of us to be willing to say, 'I don't know.' Because we cannot, under any circumstance, revert to the norm, or revert to the comfortable. We can't go back to putting kids in rows and giving grades and doing it just like we did in the past."

To help his teachers resist reverting to the norm, Terrill structured a school day around team-taught interdisciplinary academic blocks and a 120-minute "X Period" during which students could dive more deeply into their project work or spend time building relationships with their advisory groups. He characterized the first week of school as "Dis-Orientation." And he reserved the start of the year for an extended schoolwide exploration of core questions of identity: Who am I? Where do I come from? And to what extent do my genetics or geography shape who I am?

For Nikki Wallace, diversity and "dis-orientation" were precisely what she'd been looking for. A lifelong Memphian, molecular scientist, and mother of three boys, Wallace's own experiences as a researcher had confirmed the importance of integrated settings - and their relative absence. "In every lab I worked in," she explained, "I kept running up against the same negativity and the same obstacles. 'Why are y'all making everything so difficult?' I wanted to ask. 'And where are all the other black folks?'"

Crosstown's Nikki Wallace.

Consequently, when Wallace first heard about the idea of redeveloping the old Sears building, and housing a new school within its walls, she was skeptical. "I assumed it would be another failed project in Memphis," she confessed. "That has been a real issue in this city. But the idea of redesigning high school really sparked my interest as a researcher. As a parent of three boys, I knew I wanted to help kids fall in love with science."

In time, Wallace became one of Terrill's inaugural hires. Looking back on the school's first two years, she recalls the unevenness of the process. "Overall I would say we didn't do a great job of creating a community in which everyone felt accepted and could thrive. It was a struggle to get adults aligned on such a radical reimagining of how learning was supposed to unfold. It takes a lot of intention to make an organization out of the mess. When you're doing something new, and trying to dismantle something that has always been the same, folks will fight back - but if you're really intentional about the vision, you can create something new."

Fellow teacher Bertram Williams agrees. As he puts it, "This model says that you have to iterate, and iterate, and iterate. Easy answers don't leave room for perfection."

"Nothing that's worthwhile comes with an easy struggle," added another founding faculty member, Jonathan Dodo. "Think of what we're up against. We're up against years of systematic inequality. We're up against years of systemic racism. We're up against years of students being passed through a system as just another number. In a project-based setting, we're trying to work against all of that. When you have students from different backgrounds coming together and working on a lot of the same things, you have the exchange of ideas, you have the exchange of thought patterns, you have the exchange of thought processes."

In fact, Crosstown's founding student body was intentionally recruited to reflect the fullest possible reflection of its city's diversity - thanks to Terrill's careful tracking of which neighborhoods were getting over- or under-represented in enrollment figures, and then adjusting the school's outreach efforts accordingly.

"We're diverse not only in the way we look visually," said a cheerful, earnest young girl named P.J., "but we're diverse in the way we contribute to our relationships - it's like you're a family. This is why we're here; this is what makes this school so unique.

"Just look at my lunch table," she offered. "There are black people like me, but also white people, a Jewish person, atheists, gay people, non-binary people - short hair, long hair, dyed hair. This school did a good job. This is our place."

Of course, it's one thing to successfully recruit a diverse student body or outline a radically different school schedule. It's another to turn those features into a truly vibrant, healthy, and high-functioning learning culture - something Terrill sees as a constant process. "Thus far," he said as the school neared the end of its third year, "we've valued freedom over structure - but now we're starting to see which processes we need to function optimally. And all of that starts with our emphasis on identity."

For Nikki Wallace, this is where the real work must continue to be. "Our staff may be diverse, but after a few years, we started to see the same problems in Crosstown that we were seeing in Memphis. And if students see the white teachers grouping up, or the black teachers feeling undervalued, they're going to learn the wrong lessons.

"How can we be diverse in a way that all of us are going to get along?" she asked. "We're still not there, but it's clear to all of us that the work can't start until we are able to model for the students what doing the work looks like. It's been a difficult road. But now we know what has to be done; it's staring us in the face.

"We have to be integrated first if we ever want them to be."

To that end, among the school's most enduring processes are its opening week of "Dis-Orientation," and its extended exploration of core questions of both individual and shared identity.

How does generational memory work? How does culture pass down? What is the root of the indigenous wisdom in you? Which aspects of place are fixed, and which are fluid? And what makes Memphis Memphis?

In one of the first group activities of the 2019-2020 school year, students were asked to offer their thoughts on that last question, and to post them on a large wall with sticky notes.

What their answers revealed are that Memphis is, to differing degrees, about eating good BBQ, experiencing crime, or feeling unsafe. And not surprisingly, those clusters corresponded to where people lived.

To better understand why this was so, the students broke themselves down by zip code to produce their own neighborhood newspapers, and then looked for patterns in how their papers were similar or different. What followed was a schoolwide investigation of the ways inequality played out across Memphis in six areas: the economy, housing, health care, education, transportation, and criminal justice. Within those areas, students chose individual or group projects of interest to research.

P.J. chose to track the history of lynchings in Shelby County. "When you brush things under the rug for too long, you're going to start tripping," she explained. "And Memphis is tripping right now. We have gotten used to things we should never have gotten used to."

Her classmate, Britain, agreed. "We're a very soulful city that is laced with a lot of brokenness from our past," she explained. "In the past, I saw the inequality but I never really knew why. But my dad always said that Memphis is a place you can wrap your heart around. And now I feel like I have a better understanding of our beautiful and ugly history. We are all of those things, but we have the promise of hope and opportunity.

"We're starting to build an environment," P.J. added, "where everyone is always questioning - and no one is settling for what someone tells you.

"The world is so vast, in people and opinions and views - but high school's a great place to dip your foot in the water and see what the world is really like.

"You need to go there. You need to find the truth yourself."

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The Future of School Will Not Look Like "School." (It Will Look Like This)

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For decades, before it became a blight on the city landscape, the massive Sears building in Memphis was a symbol of what the "Bluff City" might one day become. Built during the Roaring Twenties, with a vivid art-deco exterior and mre than one million square feet of space, the building was a monument to the Golden Era of retail - Amazon, before Amazon.

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RSA ANIMATE: Changing Education Paradigms

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Once the envy of the world, American schools are now in trouble. Test scores show our kids lag far behind their peers in other industrialized countries. In a new age of information, rapid innovation, and globalization, how can we prepare our children to compete? As the divide between rich and poor grows wider, how can schools today help students of all backgrounds meet the challenges of tomorrow? NOVA, a production of WGBH Boston, explores how the science of learning and technological innovations are transforming the way we teach and learn, and are creating a new vision of the future of education for all children.

NOVA: SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE, a special two-hour presentation narrated by LeVar Burton, premieres Wednesday, September 14, 2016 at 9PM ET/8C on PBS (check local listings). Join the conversation @novapbs; #SchoolFuturePBS; #SpotlightEduPBS @CarnegieCorp

School of the Future is part of American Graduate: Let's Make It Happen, a public media initiative made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Major funding for School of the Future is also provided by Carnegie Corporation of New York.

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NOVA: School of the Future | Improving Schools & Systems | Carnegie Corporation of New York

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Once the envy of the world, American schools are now in trouble. Test scores show our kids lag far behind their peers in other industrialized countries. In a new age of information, rapid innovation, and globalization, how can we prepare our children to compete?

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15 בתי ספר חדשניים

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15 בתי ספר חדשניים

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We all know what's old school, but very people have the vision for a new school. But the future of education is already here, thanks to innovators around the world working to improve curriculum, technological integration, design, and sustainability.

14. Smile, You're on Camera

The AltSchool isn't so much a school as it is a startup. The institution, which serves kids from pre-K through eighth grade, was founded by former Google executive Max Ventilla in San Francisco in 2013. The school is pure Silicon Valley; it was funded by venture capitalists, with technology being a core part of the educational experience. Not only are kids provided with tablets and computers, AltSchool students are also under video surveillance while in the classroom. School officials say this is so the students' interactions can be analyzed by teachers, who hope to better understand classroom behavior and what teaching methods work best.

13. Let's Go, Microsoft!

Ok, so Microsoft - or Clippy, the paperclip - might not actually be the School of the Future's literal mascot. (It's actually a phoenix.) But the West Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, high school still has close ties to Bill Gates and his computer. Opening in 2006, the $63 million school is a public school, but Microsoft helped design the building, the khaki and logo shirt uniform, and, of course, the tech-savvy curriculum.

12. Professor Robot

Many schools have been slow to adopt robots because of teacher and student discomfort. But London Design and Engineering, a technical college for students ages 14 to 19, has embraced R2D2s for the classroom. Last winter, BBC News reported that these kids embarked on a class ski trip and took 11 Nao robots on the slopes with them.

11. A Living Lesson

One similarly technical school in Washington, D.C., is turning the building itself into a prime teaching tool. The Phelps Architecture, Construction and Engineering High School left some elements other schools might cover up, like plumbing or electric wires, exposed. That way the design-focused students can learn from experience how to build similar structures.

10. Theatrical Architecture

And aspiring engineers aren't the only ones getting the practical design treatment. The 1,700 students at Ramón C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts in Los Angeles get to work and preform in this futuristic beauty, which reportedly cost $232 million.

9. Open to Ideas

Design is just as important at the Ørestad Gymnasium in Denmark, but the results are totally different. The high school, which was founded in 2005, is one giant, multilayered, and downright beautiful cube. The school's founders say the building reflects their approach to teaching. Instead of boxing kids in - literally, so old school - Ørestad tries to keep it flexible, encouraging movement and collaboration.

8. Emotional Design

Ørestad isn't the only school using engineering to foster educational creativity. The Vittra school in neighboring nation Sweden has rooms for a variety of different lesson plans, activities, and emotional states. For example, students are welcome to separate relaxation and recreation spaces.

7. The Office

On the other end of the spectrum, students at Carpe Diem schools across the country show up everyday to their cubicle. For better or worse, the classrooms are built to mimic a typical workplace.

While forward-looking educators seem to agree on the value of thoughtful design, the difference between the boxiness of Carpe Diem and, say, the open energy of Ørestad highlights a divide in what form the future of education will take.

6. Waste Not, Want Not

The Sidwell Friends Middle School, where Malia and Sasha Obama went to school, has turned its water recycling efforts into an educational tool. The roof of the school is equipped with a stormwater capture system that channels rain into vibrant ponds and gardens for biology and chemistry classes. And instead of flushing that water away, the school's wastewater treatment system purifies the water and returns it to the system.

5. Really Feeling It

The Hazelwood School in Glasgow, Scotland, reflects its student body. Specifically for children with both visual and auditory impairments, Hazelwood's building has many accessible features, including texturized walls for navigating by touch. And most importantly to the firm that built it, Alan Dunlop Architecture Ltd., the family and teachers take pride in their space.

4. Keeping It Fresh

Still, other designers think the best schools have no set architecture at all. Back in 2012, the University of Melbourne, Melbourne School of Design, and Australian Institute of Architects held a competition to design moveable and modifiable schools. The winner, Architectus's Educational Modular Offsite Design, dreamed up a school that, with a few choices on a mobile app, could be fitted to different environments and curriculums. The runner-up, MODUPOD, imagined a school with a central core and classrooms that could be reshaped along the periphery. Unfortunately for design nerds, neither plan has made it to the mainstream.

3. The World as the Classroom

But the MODUPOD's flexibility is nothing compared to the THINK Global School. Though the school has its offices in New York, it requires its high school students to move to a new country every three months. This past school year, the group moved from Peru to Morocco to Canada. The students engage in strenuous linguistic and intellectual work, but they also get to see the world, which teachers think sets the kids apart in an increasingly interconnected world.

2. Floating Above

In some places, though, school design is strictly practical. But that doesn't mean it isn't cool. In Bangladesh, floating schools allow students to pursue their education, even during monsoon season, when roads aren't traversable and students even struggle to access clean water. And this practice isn't limited to the small South Asian nation. Floating schools are being tested, with varying degrees of success, in Nigeria and other communities faced with severe weather and, increasingly, climate change.

1. Energetic Classrooms

American schools are also looking to respond to the environment. When Greensburg, Kansas, was hit by a devastating tornado in 2007, the community had to rebuild its infrastructure mostly from scratch. Local officials decided the new Kiowa County School should be a paragon of sustainability. In addition to its on-site windmill, the school relies on geothermal heating and uses natural light instead of energy-consuming artificial light.
See also: The 15 Greenest Countries in the World

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We all know what's old school, but very people have the vision for a new school. But the future of education is already here, thanks to innovators around the world working to improve curriculum, technological integration, design, and sustainability. The AltSchool isn't so much a school as it is a startup.

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EDhub: Building a 21st Century Space to Transform Learning

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A group of educators, consultants, and designers passionate about creating innovative learning spaces and the experiences that take place in them. A place to make, meet, create, innovate, and play. What would you do in Flux? An initiative of Corbett, Inc.