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Research and Practitioner Fellowships (Job Opportunity)

The Prospect School and Center for Education and Research Fund supports two fellowship initiatives that are designed to encourage faculty, independent researchers, students, classroom teachers, principals, administrators, and other community members active in school affairs to benefit from the Prospect School and Center for Education and Research Archives.

Research Fellowship Program

Research Fellowships support the use of the Prospect School and Center for Education and Research Archives by faculty, independent researchers, and students.
 
Recipients of Research Fellowships will develop a research project using the Prospect Archives. Preference will be given to projects that develop Prospect’s philosophy and methodology and projects that connect with current educational issues. Each research fellow is required to include appropriate acknowledgment of the Prospect Archives in any work produced with the assistance of this Research Fellowship and must send a copy of resulting published work to Special Collections.
 
One research fellowship per year will be awarded as a reimbursement for expenses associated with research at the Prospect Archives at the Bailey/Howe Library, University of Vermont. The research fellowships are open to scholars, students, and independent researchers. Recipients are limited to one funded proposal every three years and priority is given to those not previously funded.
The research fellowship will be an award of $2,000

Practitioner Fellowship Program

The Practitioner Fellowship Program taps the riches of the Prospect Archives by engaging fellowship recipients over a week-long program in study of the Archive of Children’s Works using Prospect’s Descriptive Processes as the method of inquiry. The broad purpose of a fellowship is to introduce the Prospect Archives, to make the Prospect Archives accessible to a wide audience, and to demonstrate the value of the Prospect Archives for educators and the community. This includes calling to the attention of the public and the schools the resources available within the Archives and through their study. A further aim of the Practitioner Fellowship program is to support the establishment of leadership for “communities of inquiry” within recipients’ own settings by showing how the Descriptive Processes developed at Prospect help people to think more deeply about their practice and current issues in education.
 
Special Collections will appoint a mentor to guide Practitioner Fellows throughout the program. The mentor will be knowledgeable about the Prospect’s Archives, its history and the resources it provides, and experienced with the Descriptive Processes, in particular, the Description of Children’s Works.
 
Recipients of the Practitioner Fellowship are expected to spend five and a half days of study at the Bailey/Howe Library, Special Collections. The 2014 Fellowship will take place from July 14-19. July 19 is a Saturday and is planned as a half-day where fellows are expected to create and present a detailed follow-up plan for implementing what they have learned in their own classrooms, schools, colleges, or other settings. Plans might include, but are not limited to: starting an archive of children’s works; launching an inquiry community using Prospect’s Descriptive Processes as a method of study; provisioning for materials and activities intended to expand children’s or older students’ opportunities for exploring their own interests; documenting children’s and older students’ activities and curriculum; implementing nonjudgmental observing, describing and record-keeping practices developed at Prospect School. The mentor will maintain supportive contact with recipients primarily via email and phone calls as they implement their follow-up plans.
 
Approximately three fellowships are to be awarded each year to school or college based practitioners such as classroom teachers (pre-k to high school) as well as counselors, principals and other administrators; school board members; parents active in school affairs; and teacher educators. Applications from the same site are encouraged. Also encouraged are applications from the same site representing different constituencies (e.g., a classroom teacher, a parent, and an administrator). The fellowship will be an award of $2,000.
Details on how to apply for these fellowships are available at  
http://go.uvm.edu/4p5g0
The deadline for applications is February 1, 2014. Recipients will be notified by April 1, 2014.
Further information about the Prospect School and Center for Education and Research, as well an online collection of images and documents selected from the Prospect Archive of Children's work can be found at http://go.uvm.edu/781-p
Questions about the fellowship programs should be sent to Chris Burns at Chris.Burns@uvm.edu
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Inciting Education, One Campaign at a Time

By Jaime R. Wood

The summer of 2012 was my first AERO conference. I’d just met Alan Burnce, the founder of Open Road Learning Community for Teens, a few months before and his idea of building a North Star replica in Portland, Oregon, was just coming to life. I was on his Board of Directors, and we wanted to go to the AERO conference to join with folks from all over the world who were working to innovate education and to be inspired by speakers like Yaacov Hecht and Ken Robinson. Those few days were filled with so much inspiration and positive energy, but a single question arose again and again: We want to build this new learning option in our community, but where will we find the money?

Ideas were flowing from every direction, but this worry about finances left all of us a bit stumped. Just a week or two later, I was talking with a friend and colleague about this, and we came upon the concept of crowdfunding for education. We’d been hearing a lot about Kickstarter and Indiegogo, two of the biggest crowdfunding sites in the world, and we believed that we could build a platform dedicated to the cause we care about most: innovating education. Our theory was, and still is, that if we could help people help themselves, by finding money to start important education initiatives, they could do more good in their communities than we could ever do by ourselves.

One year and five months later, and IncitED: The Crowdfunding Community for Education has hosted sixteen campaigns from around the country, starting with Alan’s campaign to raise money for Open Road. He raised over $9500 in about a month from 109 small donations. This is how crowdfunding works. Alan engaged his community, sharing his passion with them, and in return they gave what they could to help him start Open Road. Since then he has helped eight teens leave negative school experiences and start living their lives “on the Open Road,” as Alan says.

We’ve also supported arts programs, science and technology clubs, nonprofits working to provide options for at-risk youth, and two other North Star related learning centers (Bay State Learning Coop and Perduco). We’ve supported programs that allow learners to build electric cars, practice aerial dance, and play in the marching band at school.

Before that AERO conference, I never would have imagined all this was possible, that a dream could grow so quickly into reality or that I would have the opportunity to help so many people do what they care about.

IncitED’s next step is to gain visibility throughout the U.S. so that all who consider themselves to be teachers and learners know that they have a place that will help them bring their education dreams to life. If you’d like more information about what we do at IncitED or how to get started building your dream, visit IncitED at www.incited.org or contact me at jrwood08@incited.org.   

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Interns Needed for South Mountain Co-op Free School in Maplewood, NJ (Job Opportunity)

Do you believe that teachers should be free to focus on curiosity, exploration, play, and authentic connection with students? Do you feel drawn to Education but discouraged by the thought of having to work within the increasingly-restrictive boxes of mainstream schools? Do you imagine opening a school of your own someday but don’t know where to start?

South Mountain Co-op is in our first year of operation as a Democratic Free School in Essex County NJ. We're currently serving 28 students between the ages of 4.5 and 15.

We're looking for interns to help staff the school, as well as interns to help with the administrative work of running the school. Among us, the co-founders have 8 years' experience in staffing and running Democratic Free Schools, and we are excited to share that experience with anyone who believes in the democratic free school model of education: that students learn and thrive when offered the space to direct their own learning, follow their own interests, and be fully involved in the decision-making process of the school

What you'll learn as an intern at SMC:

Staff internship:

  • how to engage with students in a non-coercive, joyful way
  • how to facilitate consensus-based decision making
  • how to put conflict resolution and NVC techniques into practice

Administrative internship:

  • the nitty gritty, behind the scenes work that goes in to starting and running an alternative school
  • the organizational skills to run committees and work groups, and to manage projects of your own.

SMC interns will get:

  • regular mentoring from a co-founder
  • the opportunity to be involved in every level of decision making of the operation of the school 
  • a letter describing and documenting the work you've done with us and the skills you've acquired

We're looking for applicants who:

  • can commit at least 2 days a week, for 12 weeks
  • believe in the tenets of democratic free schools
  • are reliable and self-directed workers

For more information contact Mary Karl-Gruswitz here: girlfromthefuture@fastmail.fm