Year: 2014

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Social Studies Teacher Needed

Social Studies Teacher

A small, independent K-12 school, distinguished by its 6-to-1 student-teacher ratio and personalized system of instruction, seeks a social studies teacher with a broad knowledge of global history, cultures, and geography. The candidate must be attracted by the opportunity to work with a group of committed educational innovators on a demonstration project that has visibility in the educational community.  

The teachers, functioning as an interdisciplinary collaborative team, help students achieve personalized learning objectives. Customized learning plans replace traditional grades and classes. The candidate must be skilled in working with students aged 5 to 14, individually and in small groups, and in helping them develop their social and self-management skills. The goal is to produce self-motivated independent learners who are driven by natural curiosity and a long-term love of learning.

Our approach emphasizes the development of analytical, inquiry, and critical thinking skills. In social studies, students’ principal mode of learning is to research a topic independently and then present and discuss the research report in small groups. They learn to find sources and to treat information and content as raw material for making comparisons, raising questions, and identifying relationships. They learn to relate current events to historic events, cultures, and institutions. The teacher maintains conditions in which this type of learning can occur, guides students in their research, moderates their discussions, and motivates them.

A competitive salary will be offered to the right candidate. The school is located in Long Island City, New York. Responses must include an informative introductory letter and resume, and should be directed to tqps@earthlink.net.

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Rethinking Schools is hiring a director of development and operations

Rethinking Schools is hiring a director of development and operations. 

  • Do you know people committed to the social justice education mission of Rethinking Schools? 
  • Do they have experience as an operations and development director? 
  • Are they passionate about nonprofit fundraising?

Please share the job post link and help us spread the word to your colleagues, friends, and family.
 
BRIEF JOB DESCRIPTION
The director of development and operations will be responsible for fundraising, grant writing, and financial oversight. Operations responsibilities include oversight and evaluation of Milwaukee office personnel, internal communications, oversight of book projects, and support for RS special projects.
 
We are accepting resumes through August 15. 
  
You can learn more about the responsibilities and qualifications by reviewing the detailed posting at our website. 
Thanks for your support,
  
Bill Bigelow
Curriculum Editor  

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iLEAD Job Opportunity

Are you a why-sayer?

As we once heard IKEA say, we are hiring the why-sayers. People who want to make things better, make things more fun, more clever. People who aren’t afraid of the boss. People who aren’t restricted by convention, but challenged by it. These people will fit perfectly at iLEAD, because it is the “why” that makes us successful.

Is iLEAD a fit for you?

Here is what we value…

We are a people of purpose, establishing a new paradigm for education. We are a caring culture that values community that contributes to a better society.

Our focus on developing empathy allows for respect and invites an engaging, positive, rich environment. We believe people are natural-born learners. We provide opportunities for discovery and wonder to nurture a lifelong love of learning.

Success is demonstrated through leadership, self-direction, problem-solving skills, creativity, collaboration, innovation, and service. We embrace stepping out of our comfort zone. And… we value joy, fun, choice, and voice, and we celebrate that our differences contribute to our common humanity.

Why join us?

iLEAD is a growing educational management services organization with school locations in California’s Santa Clarita and Antelope Valleys, with more on the way. It is a proven leader in project-based learning.

Our educators successfully implement this approach that is all about achieving deeper learning through authentic experiences. We foster a fun and collaborative environment that’s all about innovation.

We are a work-hard, play-hard startup network of schools that is making a difference in education. What more could you ask for? Hey, you even get a great head shot.

As a member of our Team, you will:

  • Step out of the traditional teacher role and into that of a facilitator
  • Deliver deeper learning experiences
  • Assist our organization in creating a learner-centered curriculum
  • Collaborate with colleagues in the planning and implementation of meaningful projects that engage students as they become active learners as opposed to passive participants memorizing facts
  • Work as a team to create a culture that shifts from a top-down model to a multi-point model, where leaders emerge throughout the class, school, and environment
  • Learn to implement the Common Core and a deeper learning model
  • Facilitate the development of an authentic assessment system that is relevant and meaningful to the learners
  • Guide learners to master content, rather than specific skills through dynamic projects

A note about our hiring process:

We take applications year-round and are always looking for why-sayers with a flexible mindset that would be a great addition to our team. Even if you have a credential, some of the non-credentialed positions are a great way to get your foot in the door. Many current teachers have become full-time taking this route. During the months before the school year starts, we are looking more actively than others. However, it’s always a good time to submit your resume; just please follow up throughout the year.

E-mail your resume and cover letter (online only) with the position you are interested in and your name as the subject line to: why.sayer@ileadschools.org

iLEAD Education

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An Interview with Justo Méndez Arámburu

The following interview is shared with you by both Justo Méndez Arámburu and Isaac Graves. To learn about this interview series and reproduction, citation, and copyright information, please click here. To find out more about Justo Méndez Arámburu and his work, visit nuestraescuela.org and watch his TEDx talk, Todo por mi Estrella (with subtitles).

PART ONE

Justo Méndez ArámburuIsaac Graves: What does community mean to you?

Justo Méndez Arámburu: Community has several definitions. It can mean a neighborhood where people live in the area. In our case, in Nuestra Escuela, we have come to define community as all the participants who are gathered together and take part in Nuestra Escuela’s process. The Nuestra Escuela community is our students, their families, all of the staff, all the people that belong to the place where the site is and the allies who support the development of the project.

IG: How does community play out in your life?

JMA: In my life, community—it’s a key definition part of it because I have devoted my life to belong to a community, to take part in a community, and it has been always (for the last 44 years) underprivileged communities to which I have belonged. My life has been about working with that community to transform its situation into a better one established by a common vision of what would be a better situation for the community.

IG: What do you find most meaningful about community?

JMA: That everything happens in community. Life is life in community. It may be a broader community, a smaller community—but life happens in community. The most meaningful is that community is that place where the people who will be your relatives. You meet the person who will be your partner for the rest of your life. You have your kids, and they will be raised in, by, with the community. Your kids will belong to your family but also will belong to the community. They will learn what you teach in your home, but they will learn what they get as the community values.

IG: What's missing in community?

JMA: Yes, self-sustainability, above all things. In our very particular context, self-esteem. A different self-concept, empowerment—all of that is lacking in our community and is what defines our work, defines what we do. To believe in each member of the community, who is capable of achieving what the community wants to achieve, and to believe in the community as a whole that is able to achieve what we want to achieve.

IG: What is an ideal community to you?

JMA: I live in an ideal community. I devote my life to the ideal community to which I belong. It’s a community of love, it’s a community of learning, it’s a community of solidarity, it’s a community of every person being for the community. It’s a community of support. That’s an ideal community.

"Our communities are capable of building the education they need in order to build the communities they need."
—Justo Méndez Arámburu

PART TWO

IG: What does a democratic education mean to you?

JMA: Democratic education has an individual level and a collective level. On the individual level, it means student-centered and student-led education. The student getting to know and form a personal concept that considers and values all his capacities, all his possibilities, and prepares himself with the tools necessary to build that possibility. On the collective level, it’s a community that takes in account every student of the community—every member of the community, including young members, teachers, staff, old people. Considering everybody a student, everybody a teacher and giving real participation to each member of the community in defining the collective vision.

IG: How does education play out in your life?

JMA: Life is community, community is life because community manifests in life and life manifests in community—and it all happens via education. The activity that we do when we teach or form a class in Nuestra Escuela, or when we have a conversation in the hallway, or when we have an encounter between two of us or in a group, or when we are having a social activity, or when we are having a field trip. In all moments of our life, we look for what we learn from that experience.

IG: What do you find most meaningful about education?

JMA: That it has to be definitely democratic. It has to be because it has to take into account every member of the community. It has to consider and give value to the context in which each member of the community has come to be a person.

It must give the opportunity to each member of the community to see what’s happening, to understand what’s happening, to have critical thinking of what’s happening. To facilitate assuming a position about each situation and giving the tools to go for that position and to build that position. Whatever position, we have to respect every decision, every conclusion that each member who is part of the learning community takes. Education also has to create an environment in which everyone will be respected and every position of each member of the community will be respected. And give us the tools to build consensus on the different positions, and then decide a certain way in which we, as a community, will move. Not decided by a boss or by a leader but by the consensus of the community.

IG: What's missing in education?

JMA: All that I have expressed. That’s not the education that we have in our nation, Puerto Rico, and in many places of the world. What’s missing in education: respect for each member of the community. The teacher understanding himself or herself as also a student, the student as also a teacher. The word “democratic” is missing from education.

IG: What is an ideal education to you?

JMA: It’s in its essence democratic. That is the ideal education, that will just be the activity of a community—of a learning community. Learning together, everybody from everybody, and that builds community and builds respect for the individual criteria for every member of the community. That builds the necessary tools to build consensus, taking into account all those personal positions.

IG: What do you think people should know about the relationship between community and education?

JMA: That our communities are capable of building the education they need in order to build the communities they need.