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The Birch School/Maker Rings Chosen for National Educator Innovator Award

November 20, 2014

Rock Tavern, NY –– The Birch School, a small independent school in northeastern Orange County, is one of fourteen schools across the nation to be awarded a LRNG Innovation Challenge Grant from the National Writing Project (NWP) to develop, pilot, and share promising strategies to strengthen connected and deeper learning. The LRNG Innovation Challenge is a new program sponsored in partnership with the MacArthur Foundation and John Legend’s Show Me Campaign.

LRNG is a new initiative that invests in forward-looking schools and teachers to design innovative projects that take advantage of new technology to support students’ creativity.

“The LRNG partners were impressed by The Birch School because of their teacher-led commitment to ensuring that young people become the problem solvers of the future”, stated NWP executive director, Elyse Eidman-Aadahl. “We are pleased to support their innovation and sharing their story with schools across the country.”

The Birch School plans to use the new funds to support their work with students to create peer-based learning communities that encourage trust and mutual support. “Our small size allows us to take an experimental approach to student directed and project based learning,” said co-founder and Principal Teacher Ed Helbig.

The new project, called “Maker Rings”, will challenge students with opportunities to produce work that reflects what they are learning. A key component of the project is designing and building a portable technology resource center stocked with tools for creation and “Making”. This “Pop-Up Maker Space” will include hand tools, craft and electronics projects, computer coding demonstrations and a 3D Printer. The Birch School plan is to have the students demonstrate and share projects at local events and festivals in hopes of inspiring other young people to become “Makers” themselves. Their teacher team will share the curriculum they develop through the network of LRNG learning communities and on their project website, www.MakerRings.com.

“This funding will provide the resources that allow us to develop new ways of learning for students of the 21st Century. We are honored to be chosen by LRNG, and be recognized by national foundations as innovative educators.” said Kate Fox, co-founder and Director of The Birch School.

Funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Show Me Campaign, and individual donors, the LRNG grantees will develop, pilot and share promising teacher-powered strategies and solutions to strengthen connected and deeper learning for the widest range of young people. To learn more about LRNG and the grantees, visit

Innovation Challenges

www.TheBirchSchool.org

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November 30th: Class Dismissed Movie Screening In New York City

Nov 30, 2014 11:00 AM

Be the among the first to see the Class Dismissed movie!

We'd like you to come to a special screening of this powerful documentary. If you are a parent, or want a fresh perspective on education & how people learn, you won't want to miss this one-time showing!

Not only will the filmmakers and be in attendance, but some of experts in the film will be on hand as well. After showing the 90-minute movie, they filmmakers will host a short Q&A session.

We encourage you to invite friends or family who you think will benefit from the alternative education insights this film provides. Jerry Mintz has an interview in the documentary.

Buy tickets here.

 
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Democratic Education and Low Voter Turnout

by Jerry Mintz
 
After last week's record low turnout for the midterm vote there were a lot of articles reporting this and despairing the phenomenon. But the analysis of why this happens didn't ever get to the core of the situation:
 
As I said in one of my TEDx talks, "I think that the best way to prepare students to participate in a democratic society is to have them grow up in democratic schools. Why do we have them experience 12 years of a dictatorship and then expect them to be ready for democracy?
 
Why would we think that people who attended schools for twelve or more years would be prepared to vote when they didn't grow up participating in a democracy?  In fact, the training in 95% of the schools seems to be how to live and survive in a dictatorship.
Jerry Mintz
Jerry Mintz

You would think this would be self-evident. Democratic schools are very successful and their graduates do amazing things. Most of the schools we help people start have a sliding scale tuition and are interracial and have a spectrum of students.
 
Related to all of this is bullying. I believe that no program will "cure" bulling in mainstream public and private schools because of their top-down, authoritarian nature.  In that situation there will always be people at the "bottom" who will be bullied by those above. But in democratic and non-authoritarian  learner-centered schools bullying is hardly seen. When it does happen, a democratic meeting about it can be called right away. Even in public at-risk alternatives, researcher Dr. Robert Barr discovered a starting drop in bullying statistics when he looked at alternative schools in his research.
 

You might wonder why research like this doesn't lead to drastic changes. I do, too. But I think that the current authoritarian system serves some economic vested interests and is also more akin to a religion. It is based on habits and  rituals and not very amenable to research or discussion. So that is our challenge! We know that learner-centered and democratic schools work. How do we get this across to the mainstream so we can truly have an Education Revolution?