A community of learners, a love of learning

I know I post a lot of articles, but finding North Star Schools in the news (even when they don’t call themselves North Star Schools) brightens my day.  I hope it gives all of you a dose of daily joy too!

 Of note in this article, about a small learner-centered school, based on cultivating a love of learning and catering to the creative and intellectual needs of the students, is:

“The community aspect is a huge part of our program,” Esch said. “They strengthen each other in different ways … There are so many advantages to the small school setting.”

Question of the day: of course small school settings are preferable, but what are some ways a larger school (which is often unavoidable) can create that community aspect?  Succes stories, anyone?

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 23rd, 2007 at 6:40 am by Marli and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “A community of learners, a love of learning”

  1. Maryann Says:
    August 27th, 2007 at 5:49 am

    Our elementary school uses “buddies.” An older grade works with a younger grade on projects and special activities. The older children tend to look out for their younger buddies even outside of the school, such as on the bus or on the walk home from school. Many teachers invite former students back to their class to help. This is especially helpful when we are doing a big and/or complicated project where extra support is invaluable. Since they have already done the projects, they have a unique insight that even adult helpers don’t have. Plus, the former students connect with the younger ones and learn some great leadership skills.

  2. Marli Says:
    August 28th, 2007 at 5:50 am

    That’s great- do you team teach with the older students’ teachers?

  3. Maryann Says:
    September 1st, 2007 at 7:42 am

    I guess you could say we team teach our buddy activities. Some of the teaching, I would say, is the older children helping the younger ones. One of the fifth grade teachers (not my buddy teacher) just told us second grade teacher a great story. On Thursday we have an Open House where families can come for an hour and meet their new teacher. The fifth grade teacher wanted to let us know how excited some of her former second grade buddies were to have her as their fifth grade teacher. They had been waiting and hoping three years later that they would get to have her! What great community spirit.

  4. Marli Says:
    September 4th, 2007 at 5:41 am

    That’s great - for the teacher, but also for the students! So many students stress about meeting a new teacher, it must have been a nice change of pace to be looking forward to working with a teacher they already knew!

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.