by Lynn Barendsen
Expeditionary Learning 2010 National Conference
Wendy and I are attending the Expeditionary Learning Schools National Conference in Kansas City. An amazing group of educators, and an inspiring series of discussions. This year’s focus is on good work and we’re honored to be a part of it. For those of you who aren’t yet familiar with Expeditionary Learning, let me tell you a little bit about it, because it’s growing, it’s having impact, and that impact is of exceptional quality. What was once a small group of schools now seems to be a movement: 165 ELS schools now serve over 46,000 students.
Ron Berger, Chief Program Officer of ELS and a treasured colleague of the GWP, explained how good work appears in Expeditionary Learning Schools as follows. Their schools are good in quality: they have academic rigor, accuracy, craftsmanship, and beauty. They are good for the soul: they are engaging and fulfilling for students and for teachers. And they are good for the world: they provide contributions that go beyond the classroom, they build character, citizenship, and 21st century skills. Expeditionary Learning is all about the student work; it is on display at this conference in abundance, and it is beautiful. I have only words – no pictures – to describe some of the visuals I’ve seen today, but I’ll do my best by relating one of Ron’s many stories about student projects.
Years ago, 3rd graders at the Capital City Public Charter School in Washington DC asked a simple question. In their school, they were taught to treat everyone with respect and kindness. And yet, every day on the way to school, they passed homeless people and never said a word. They questioned themselves and wondered why they treated homeless people differently than they treated one another.
They began with research, asking how people become homeless, and wondering what they could do to help. They interviewed police, workers in shelters, and eventually the homeless themselves. They decided they wanted to create a product to educate very young children about the homeless, to teach them that “homeless people are people too.”
Working with a grant from a local foundation, these 3rd graders wrote “The ABC Book of Homelessness”. Each page has a watercolor illustration and text addressing an aspect of the issue. For example, “H is for Heart. Homeless people have heart. They help other homeless people.” This book was published and sent to schools around the DC area. Some cynics might ask what, if anything, was accomplished by this work. Did the homeless population decrease? Did anything change? According to one child involved in the work, “everything changed.” As he explained it, “now we know the names of the homeless people and they know our names and we say hello to each other. Everything’s changed.”
Indeed, something registered in the minds of these students. Several years later, now in middle school, some of these students remembered their project on homelessness vividly. So vividly, in fact, that when the President and First Lady came to their school, this was the work they wanted to show them. I know I don’t remember anything that formative from my own 3rd grade experiences … do you?
We spoke in a session on Good Work this morning about people that inspire us: individuals that we believe truly exemplify good work. We brainstormed together about their qualities: they are brave, visionary, humble, honest, collaborative, trustworthy, hardworking, creative … the list goes on and on. An intimidating list of qualities and sometimes, as we hold these standards up to ourselves, the list seems unrealistic and impossible. How can anyone be “all that?” But interestingly, the exemplary “good workers” looked up to by our group were neither famous nor, by some standards, extraordinarily accomplished. When asked to tell us more about the people who inspire them, we discovered that they were thinking about their parents, their students and their colleagues.
So, I guess a couple of lessons learned today in Kansas City. First, when we’re pushed beyond our comfort zone, (for example, to interview the homeless), we learn about ourselves. ELS students are regularly pushed to accomplish more than they ever imagined possible. Second, we don’t need to look too far to find inspiration. There are examples of good work all around us. It’s just a question of seeing it, learning from it, and trying to help it grow.