Conversations about schooling: The Smart Schooling Book Group

Alt Ed Austin is pleased to help spread the word about a new book group focused on crucial questions about educational systems and new understandings in the psychology of learning. Antonio Buehler, founder of Abrome, joins us on the blog to explain why he started the group and how you can join the conversations.
 

The majority of the parents we talk to are not eagerly looking to provide their children with a rich, self-directed learning environment. Sadly, most of the parents we talk to are trying to save their children from the trauma that is so often associated with schooling (e.g., testing, sleep deprivation, depression, bullying). One of the greatest challenges we face when talking to those parents about Emancipated Learning as an alternative to school is that it is often the first time that they have heard of an educational environment that does not rely on coercion. Most of them have never been introduced to the notion of self-directed education, or they believe that self-directed education can be achieved by allowing a student to pick a topic they are expected to write a report about. They might have heard of homeschooling, but have never heard of unschooling, Sudbury Valley, or Summerhill.

Instead of being able to highlight how we are creating a psychologically safe learning space where young people can engage in deep, meaningful, and enduring learning experiences that will allow them to lead remarkable lives, we are left trying to educate them on human psychology, the history of schooling, and the science of learning. Needless to say, a 30-minute conversation covering such deep topics is typically not enough to compel parents to take meaningful action to improve their children’s learning experiences in their current schools, to move them to alternative schools that better meet their children’s needs, or to opt out of schooling altogether.

At the same time, there are a lot of teachers and administrators who know that something is not working at their schools but do not know what they can do to substantially improve the situation.  They have most likely never been introduced to much of the research that proves that self-directed learning is the best way to deepen learning, promote lifelong learning, and eliminate much of the trauma associated with coercive schooling. It is not their fault, as the organizations they work for and the education schools that they attended go out of their way to ignore these topics, and instead focus on marginal reforms while pushing the baseline assumption that young people need to be forced to learn, and that schooling environments are where that happens.

In an attempt to spur the necessary conversations around education that are currently not happening, we will be hosting the “Smart Schooling Book Group” at the Laura Bush Community Library for the duration of this year. We will read one book each month that focuses on education, with an emphasis on the psychology that would ideally inform how we approach education, and then come together to discuss it on the last Thursday of each month.

2017 Reading List
Jan 26:  Why Don't Students Like School? by Daniel Willingham
Feb 23:  The Price of Privilege by Madeline Levine
Mar 30:  Wounded by School by Kirsten Olsen
Apr 27:  Free to Learn by Peter Gray
May 25:  Overschooled but Undereducated by John Abbott
Jun 29:  Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined by Scott Barry Kaufman
Jul 27:   Gardener and the Carpenter by Alison Gopnik
Aug 31:  Drive by Daniel Pink
Sep 28:  Summerhill School: A New View of Childhood by A. S. Neill
Oct 26:  The End of Average by Todd Rose
Nov 30:  Old School by Tobias Wolff (novel)
Dec 28:  Mindset by Carol Dweck

We hope that young people, parents, future parents, teachers, and school administrators can all benefit from these readings and conversations. Hopefully, some school board members will also drop in.

Antonio Buehler
 

Come one, come all, to the Austin Alternative School Fair 2017!

Get out your calendar, circle February 25, and rally the kids of all ages!

The nonprofit Education Transformation Alliance is joining with sponsors Free Fun in Austin, Whole Foods Market, and Alt Ed Austin to host the annual Austin Alternative School Fair on February 25, from 11a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Whole Foods Market rooftop plaza.

Check out the event’s Facebook page for updates over the next few weeks.

We like to think we’re doing our part to “Keep Austin Weird” for kids by bringing together highly innovative, creative educators to share information about the number and variety of learning options in our area.

Parents and kids will have a chance to meet with the folks who run schools, enrichment programs, and educational services. The fair is set up on the plaza near the playground and features engaging activities for teens and younger kids, including virtual reality experiences, 3D printing, computer games, a mini nature museum, assorted crafts, as well as movement-based fun like sock poi and flow arts. And of course, there will be healthy food and drinks for sale from Whole Foods.

Alt Ed Austin is proud to sponsor the event again this year. It’s always a chance to talk and share in a relaxed, fun setting. We’re lucky—and more important, our kids are lucky—to have such a caring community of educators.

Participants this year include:

• Abrome (K–12th)
• AHB Community School (K–8th)
• Clearview Sudbury School (K–12th)
• French School of Austin (PreK–8th
• Fusion Academy (6-12th)
• Game of Village (enrichment program for ages 9–14)
• Growing Curiosity (PreK)
• Inside Outside School (K–5th)
• Integrity Academy (PreK–12th)
• KoSchool (8th–12th)
• Progress School (K–8th)
• Radicle Roots Community Schoolhouse (K–8th)
• Sansori High School (9th–12th)
• Skybridge Academy (6th–12th)
• Synergy Middle School (enrolling ages 11–13 for 2017)
• Whole Life Learning Center (PreK–8th)
• WonderWell (ages 2 through PreK & Kinder)

News that made a difference for Texas students

In the first week of this new year, we want to look back at some of the most consequential education stories—for both public schools and alternative schools—in Texas in 2016. As we look back, we see three major political flashpoints, and also some promising trends and innovations growing out of the alternative school scene in our area. Both flashpoints and innovations are listed below, with links for finding out more information about each.
 

Political Flashpoints

• At the moment we were compiling this list, the Austin American-Statesman published a report revealing that “School districts across Texas pulled in lackluster preliminary grades under the state’s new letter-grade accountability system.” The new system, which won’t be fully implemented until next year, is based primarily on standardized testing and got a lot of complaints and pushback from school districts—including Austin ISD—even before the preliminary grades were released. Looks like this grading system will be an issue to watch going forward into 2017 and beyond.
• August 2016 marked the 50th anniversary of the tragedy of the sniper attack on UT’s campus, the first modern-day mass shooting. August also marked the beginning of so-called “campus carry” at Texas’s public colleges.
• A series of investigative pieces by the Houston Chronicle revealed that the Texas Education Agency may have mandated low special education enrollment in public schools, leading to the denial of crucial services for many children and saving the state billions. The investigations are ongoing.
   

Trends in Alternative Education around Austin

• We’ve seen a boom in outdoor and nature-based preschool education in the Austin area, with a new family program—Tinkergarten—as a welcome addition. You’ll find preschools that put nature education high on their priority list in our school directory.
• Entrepreneurial education and schools that specifically focus on preparing kids for the changing economy, which will require more creativity and problem-solving skills, are definitely on the rise.
• Inclusiveness, including gender inclusiveness, is something more and more alternative schools pride themselves on.

If there are trends or major issues in Texas education you want to see explored on our blog, let us know in the comments below, and we’ll make an effort to address them in 2017. Here’s to a happy new year for all Texas kids!
 

Time to get your story-loving kids on board for NaNoWriMo!

We WRITE, practicing the arts of storytelling and poetry. We SHARE—reading our own work aloud in the classroom, performing in public, or having work published; sharing brings writers in contact with readers, helping build literary communities in our own backyards.

—The Badgerdog writing program of the Austin Public Library Friends Foundation

For most of us, November 1st means digging a few sweaters and sweatshirts out of the back of the closet, ramping up the panic as Thanksgiving’s culinary pressures approach, and enjoying the sights, sounds, and tastes of peak autumn. But for a certain group of word nerds, November 1st means one thing above all: It’s time to begin the NaNoWriMo marathon and not look up from the notebook or keyboard until midnight, November 30th.

NaNoWriMo, an acronym for National Novel Writing Month, is an international writing challenge community that started as a tiny idea in 1999 in San Francisco and eventually turned into a nonprofit in 2005. Today, hundreds of thousands of people across the globe participate by signing up online and pledging to write the first draft of a 50,000-word novel in the month of November. If you make that goal, you “win” NaNo, but even if you don’t reach the word mark, participants get a great sense of camaraderie and accomplishment just from process.

For young people, there is a special community, called the Young Writers Program, where kids of all ages can join in the challenge with their teachers and parents. In 2015, more than 80,000 students and educators took part, not counting the teens who participated, as many do, in the main NaNo community. Kids generally set their own word limits, and aren’t bound, of course, by the 50,000 goal, which is about the length of The Great Gatsby. For a little taste of the excitement involved in plotting, world building, and sharing stories, take a look at some of the many videos created by past teen participants by searching “NaNoWriMo2016” on YouTube.

In Austin, the place for young writers to learn more about the NaNoWriMo experience is at the Austin Public Library. At Faulk Central Library, kids ages 10 and older are invited to attend a NaNoWriMo kickoff Tuesday, November 1, at 5:30 p.m. called “What’s Your Story.” This will be followed by “Keep It Up,” a meeting halfway into the month, on November 15. At the end of the intense and fabulous month there will be a celebratory meeting on December 1, when kids can talk about their experiences, learn a little about how to revise the first draft they have created, and even share their work.

In addition to the library activities, if you have girls in 3rd through 8th grade who are aspiring writers, they may be interested in a couple of workshops happening on Saturday, November 5, as part of the We Are Girls TX conference. Here’s the schedule.

The NaNoWriMo activities at the library are sponsored by the Badgerdog writing program, which operates year-round and sponsors spring break and summer writing workshops for elementary, middle, and high school kids all over Austin.

Cecily Sailer, Programs Manager for the Austin Public Library Friends Foundation, says her best advice is that kids of all ages should have fun with NaNoWriMo and set their own, personal goals. “If you spend November writing a little more than normal, you win!” says Cecily. “And make sure to talk about what you’re creating with someone else—take it outside the keyboard or notebook and into the world.”

Follow the Library Foundation on Facebook for updates about this program, and definitely check out the Unbound blog, which features writing and artwork by students!

Need more inspiration?

Shelley Sperry

Holistic eating, playing, and learning make for healthy kids at Integrity Academy

The sign in the Casa de Luz dining hall, which serves Integrity Academy’s students and mentors—as well as the public—in central Austin says simply, “Nature is our menu planner.”

At Integrity Academy kids ages three to thirteen experience lunch time and snack time as opportunities “to commune over food in a public setting, with manners and reverence,” says Executive Director Ali Ronder. As beautifully shown in a recent video (above), they use real dishes, glassware, and cloth napkins instead of styrofoam trays and plastic sporks. The kids also help to grow their own food in an organic garden, including a “rainbow garden,” where they are currently planting the red end of the spectrum, including strawberries.

Students learn about nutrition in twice weekly classes, making yummy snacks like banana “sushi” and blueberry smoothies. Ali says that taco day is everyone’s favorite, but all the lunches on the weekly menu are tasty, colorful, and vegan.

Celebrating Integrity Academy’s dedication to serving students plant-based, healthy, organic meals, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine recently awarded the school a “Golden Carrot” and a prize of $750.

“Not only are these foods helping students stay focused and energized in the classroom, but they’re also reducing long-term risk for chronic diseases,” according to Physicians Committee dietician Karen Smith.
 

The academy’s educational philosophy has always included devotion to a whole food, plant-based diet as the basis for healthy learning. Two full hours of the students’ day are devoted to learning how to care for their own bodies through yoga and games, in addition to nutrition and gardening classes.

Parents and mentors at Integrity Academy point to the fact that even kids who are initially wary end up enthusiastic vegan eaters as their palates develop over time. And with healthy bodies come more energy and the “emotional resilience” that makes learning and getting along with each other so much easier and more fun. All you have to do is take a look at the academy’s blog to see that’s true.
 

Shelley Sperry

Media Monday: Making history—Guns on UT's campus, 1966 & 2016

Photo by Larry D. Moore [CC BY-SA 3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons

As many Austinites are aware, today marks the 50th anniversary of one of our city’s most tragic events—the sniper attack on UT’s campus that many historians consider the nation’s first modern-day mass shooting. Student and ex-Marine Charles Whitman killed his wife and mother before climbing the infamous UT clock tower with rifles and pistols to gun down almost 50 more people before police managed to stop him. In all, Austin lost 17 lives as a result, including Whitman’s.

In the five decades since, as the Washington Post notes in its remembrance of that bloody day, “The killing spree introduced the nation to the concept of a ‘mass shooting’ outside the context of a military battlefield,” and now that concept is so commonplace that we can barely mourn one loss of life before another intrudes to take its place on our TV screens. Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, Orlando, Houston—the list is long and growing longer.

Today, as a bell tolled and the tower clock stopped, UT President Gregory Fenves spoke to honor the anniversary and the lives lost—and to dedicate a new memorial. Two UT student body presidents, from 2016–2017 and 1966–1967, read the names of the fallen.
 

Several projects capture interviews, data, and powerful video and 3D recreations about the UT shootings. These offer a helpful jumping off point for discussions in the classroom and at home about the psychology and politics of mass shootings.

• The Austin American Statesman’s tower shooting site is comprehensive, and includes coverage of today’s memorial ceremony and the campus carry controversy.
• On the 40th anniversary, in 2006, Texas Monthly writer Pamela Colloff produced “96 Minutes,” a collection of first-person accounts of the events that is still a powerful document. Colloff has also written recent articles about the new memorial and about one of the survivors, Claire Wilson. The magazine collects its reporting on the UT tower shooting in one spot here.
• And in “Out of the Blue,” Texas Standard and the Briscoe Center for American History have produced a vast interactive site with stories, think pieces, and video and audio interviews.

Today is also the day that Texas joins a handful of states that allow guns on college campuses. Many advocates argue that if good citizens on the UT campus had had their weapons available in 1966, the carnage could have been minimized. Data from the FBI indicates that from 2000 to 2013 at least 21 of 160 active shooters were stopped by civilians without guns; one was stopped by an armed civilian.

What are the parameters of the new campus rules in Austin? In a nutshell:

• Anyone who currently holds a Texas license for a handgun may carry it on the UT campus, but must keep it holstered and out of sight.
• Faculty may declare offices gun-free.
• Guns are not allowed where students sleep, but they are allowed in dining and lounge areas of dorms.
• Guns are not allowed at sports events.

Details of all the campus carry regulations in Texas are tracked by the Dallas News and updated regularly on the Campus Carry Tracker.
 

Shelley Sperry