Social
Education
Activism/Advocacy
How one school is centering social-emotional learning
At Valor Collegiate Academy in Nashville, helping students thrive personally and academically through a weekly social-emotional learning practice called Circle is central to their values. The school encourages students to share what’s going on in their lives and to accept support, creating a community of care. According to one student, "It's half-way between a group therapy session and an AA meeting." (read more)
A child’s brain develops more in its first 3 years than it does over the rest of its lifetime.
EdBuild — “a nonprofit organization focused on bringing common sense and fairness to the way states fund public schools.”
Articles/Op-eds
Valor Academy’s Circle, Wade Lee Hudson
I found “How one school is centering social-emotional learning” to be profoundly inspiring. This PBS “Brief but Spectacular” video documents a Valor Collegiate Academy mutual aid “Circle.” Since 2014, Valor has expanded to more than 30,000 students nationwide. Their success suggests the holistic, egalitarian movement is spreading. Time is short, however. The world may be on a deadly downward spiral.
Daren Dickson, Valor’s Chief Culture Officer, says, “Our dream has been to turn circle facilitation over to the kids as they get into high school. We all know that middle schoolers are much more impacted by each other than by adults, so having them lead the practice will be more meaningful. “
This 11-minute video captures a Circle led by a Valor student.
Valor encourages students to share what’s going on in their lives and accept support. Their mission is “sharp minds; big hearts.” They aim to create a community of care “to empower our diverse community to live inspired, purposeful lives,…bring our diverse community together, and support each other in identity and relational development.” Valor bases its approach on four pillars: 1) top-tier academics; 2) intentional diversity; 3) built to last; and 4) whole child development.
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Democratic leadership in Waldorf schools, Martyn Rawson
This paper explores the democratic nature of school leadership in Waldorf schools and compares this with the wider framework of the principles of holistic democracy. Te study is set against a background of calls for the reform ofinternational educational policy and what the author sees as the need for reform in school leadership within the Waldorfmovement. In a number of respects Waldorf schools practice elements of democratic or developmental school leadershipthat are felt by some commentators to be lacking in mainstream education, yet at the same time there are some elements ofschool leadership common to Waldorf schools that do not fully reflect democratic principles. Tough mainly theoretical,this paper draws on some qualitative data generated using questionnaires and interviews with around 80 Waldorf teachersin over 10 countries. Te paper concludes that the conceptual framework of holistic democracy could be a useful tool forself-reflection in Waldorf schools. Te paper identifies some areas in which Waldorf practice of school governance couldbe fruitfully analysed using Bourdieu’s theory of social practice.
Peers, more than teachers, inspire us to learn, Michigan State University.
"Why do I have to learn this?" It's a common question among youth, but new research suggests students perform much better academically when the answer is provided by their peers rather than their teachers.
Democrats, You Can’t Ignore the Culture Wars Any Longer (behind paywall), Jamelle Bouie.
Almost 60 years ago, the historian Richard Hofstadter described what he saw as the true goal of McCarthyism. “The real function of the Great Inquisition of the 1950s was not anything so simply rational as to turn up spies or prevent espionage,” he wrote, “or even to expose actual Communists, but to discharge resentments and frustrations, to punish, to satisfy enmities whose roots lay elsewhere than in the Communist issue itself.”...
...they are the foundation for an assault on the very idea of public education, part of the long war against public goods and collective responsibility fought by conservatives on behalf of hierarchy and capital. READ MORE (behind paywall)
Why the School Wars Still Rage, Jill Lepore.
From evolution to anti-racism, parents and progressives have clashed for a century over who gets to tell our origin stories... But across the past century, behind parents’ rights, lies another unbroken strain: some Americans’ fierce resistance to the truth that, just as all human beings share common ancestors biologically, all Americans have common ancestors historically. A few parents around the country may not like their children learning that they belong to a much bigger family—whether it’s a human family or an American family—but the idea of public education is dedicated to the cultivation of that bigger sense of covenant, toleration, and obligation. In the end, no matter what advocates of parents’ rights say, and however much political power they might gain, public schools don’t have a choice… READ MORE
Make Schools More Human, Jal Mehta.
"The pandemic showed us that education was broken. It also showed us how to fix it.... The pandemic is helping many of us to think about our students in a fuller and more holistic way; we should remember that when the crisis ends.... Districts could embrace this shift by moving away from top-down edicts and instead inviting teachers, students and community members to codesign the structures that affect them."
Children Learning From Each Other In Hunter-Gatherer Societies Offers Lessons To The Global North, Sheina Lew-Levy.
"We need not become hunter-gatherers to foster collaborative problem-solving in the global North. Whether in school or out of school, encouraging children to spend more time in multi-age peer groups, where they can try activities just beyond their skill level without interference from adults, can provide more creative opportunities for learning."
Who does the American School System Serve?, stacy.
“We have an opportunity right now to focus on education instead of school.... What if we turned to teachers—along with parents, students, and school administrators—and gave them the freedom to design new educational opportunities fit for a complex, uncertain, and rapidly changing world?”
The Sheer Number of School Districts Is Tilting the Playing Field, Rebecca Sibilia.
“Changing their borders would go a long way toward getting public school money where it most needs to be.”
Researching Holistic Democracy in Schools, Philip A. Woods
“Without Fixing Inequality, the Schools are Always Going to Struggle,” Eight public school teachers. “Our cities’ teachers on how children’s neighborhoods at birth shape their lives.”
Researching Holistic Democracy in Schools, Phillip Woods
This Is How Scandinavia Got Great, David Brooks
When the Culture War Comes for the Kids, George Packer
Don’t Dismiss ‘Safe Spaces’, Michael S. Roth
The Anti-College Is on the Rise, By Molly Worthen
It Was Never About Busing, Nikole Hannah-Jones (see Podcasts, The Myth That Busing Failed, The Daily interview with Nikole Hannah-Jones)
The State of Racial Diversity in the Educator Workforce, U.S. Department of Education (2016).
Books
Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1986), Paolo Friere
Videos
Do schools kill creativity?, TED Talk | “Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.”