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: Apps for the budding naturalist

About this time last year, researchers from the UK and Brazil published an article lamenting the lack of great nature study apps. From their point of view, the powerful tools of phones and tablets weren’t being used to their best advantage for citizen science projects. The truth is, there probably are a million ways to take advantage of our devices’ abilities to measure location, light, altitude, and to take photos, videos, and audio—and there will be many new nature study apps in coming years. But right now, students of all ages can find a decent variety of apps to help us learn about the natural world.

There are apps for geology, astronomy, climate, zoology, botany—you name it. For this post, I’ve done a quick survey of some of the most fun and helpful apps for kids who want to study animals and participate in citizen science projects. Most are free—so give them a try!

WWF Together wins my vote for most adorable and irresistible of the animal apps. The app brings users stories about endangered species, with interactive features using origami and incorporating your own selfies. I used it on an iPhone, but I assume it would be even more stunning on a larger iPad screen.
FREE; iOS and Android

I was surprised to see how many apps in the app stores are labeled “Montessori.” Nature-oriented apps designed for little ones include two that look especially worthwhile: Montessori Approach to Zoology—Vertebrates and Montessori Approach to Zoology—Invertebrates. They include matching puzzles and help kids learn to categorize animals by characteristics.
$2.99-$3.99; iOS only (but other Montessori-based apps are available on Android)

Audubon, as you might expect, puts out a lovely range of apps for both iPhone and iPad, including its Audubon Bird Guide: North America, with stunning photos for over 800 species. Probably best for older kids, the app allows users to keep their own lists of sightings and listen to tweets, caws, and all kinds of other bird sounds.
FREE; iOS and Android

Merlin Bird ID is another great birding app, from the Cornell Ornithology Lab. It’s quite interactive, asking the user questions to help narrow down the type of bird, and includes bird sounds and photos.
FREE; iOS and Android

For kids, one of the first “citizen science” apps was connected to the online Project Noah, which allows users to share photos and video of plants and animals. Unfortunately, the app is only available via iOS and hasn’t been updated since 2012.

iNaturalist, on the other hand, also allows you to record what you see and share with others, and it looks great for older kids. What’s even better for Austin kids? The iNaturalist makers have also created Texas Nature Trackers, specifically focused on our state’s wildlife and plants. Check this one out for sure!
FREE; iOS and Android

Shelley Sperry

Home-brewed education at AHB

Nicole Lessin is an Austin-based writer whose work has appeared in the San Antonio Express-News, Edible Austin, and the Hundreds of Heads Survival Guides. She has recently returned from a two-year adventure living in Denmark with her husband and two daughters, both of whom are thriving at AHB Community School. We invited Nicole to the blog to write about the school and its unusual fundraising and community-building tradition.
 

For the past eight years, Austin Home Base Community School (AHB), a small, progressive elementary and middle school in Hyde Park, has been hosting the Austin Home Brew Festival, an annual fundraiser that celebrates Central Texas’s finest home-brewed beers, meads, ciders, and kombuchas.

Though the brewfest began as a small backyard gathering of parents swapping their homebrews and tossing cash into the kitty, the event has in more recent years emerged as a player in the city’s iconic festival landscape, offering participants a unique, DIY Austin experience.

“People say the beers at our festival taste professional, but they are not mass marketed,” says AHB parent and longtime festival volunteer Wendy Salome. “They are unique and individual and they exist in that moment.”

Indeed, this year’s uncommon flavors—all preselected by a panel of certified beer judges and not otherwise available for sale in any stores—will include Sweet Coffee Stout, Summer Cider, and some great traditionals like Helles Lager.
 

While small-batch beer and progressive education may seem at first glance to be unlikely bedfellows, festival organizers say the slow-food spirit of home brewing is a perfect match for AHB’s creative and collaborative approach to education.

“We talk about AHB a lot as a hybrid, taking the best of different things and creating something even better out of it, and I think that’s what homebrewers do as well,” Salome says. “It’s kind of taking the things that you like about your different beers and making the beer that works best for you. That’s what families and administration have done all along at AHB.”

To be sure, in an era of increasingly standardized education, testing, and grades, the emphasis at AHB is on authentic, project-based learning, critical thinking, and community participation. Instead of standard grade levels, kids work in mixed-age classrooms. And instead of mandatory attendance five days a week, the students’ school week ranges from three to five days—depending on age and interests. 
 

“When I first discovered the school and came into the classrooms, the thing that hit me the most was the confidence and the importance of the narrative voice of the child to be heard, to be understood, to be supported, and that follows along in everything we do in our integrated curriculum,” says AHB Director Mary Williams. “The teachers set the agenda, but then it’s up to the children to help drive the curriculum and to complete the process and the products and the projects.”

Parents say the result is a unique blend of creative freedom with rigorous academics, often at the level of or even exceeding international standards.

“We wanted to find a place where kids could grow and be free and be creative, but also have structure, so we knew that there was accountability for their learning,” says festival volunteer and AHB parent Valerie Sand. “I wanted someone who knew what they were doing to say, this is what’s going to happen now. Let’s make it fun. Let’s give you ownership of it. And I really believe in that, and that makes it easy to get involved.”
 

The 8th Annual Austin Home Brew Festival will be held from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. on Friday, November 4, 2016, at Saengerrunde Hall. For more information, go to facebook.com/AustinHomebrewFestival or ahbfestival.org.
 

Nicole Lessin

 

3 reasons personal development is essential to 21st-century education

Guest contributor Letsie Khabele is co-founder and CEO of KọSchool, a unique high school in south-central Austin. He joins us on the blog today to share some of his expertise on personal development, one of the pillars of a KọSchool education.
 

Many high-performing athletes, entrepreneurs, and leaders stress the value of personal development. While there are variations on approaches, there is a lot of consensus on the goals: How does a person increase their performance in any area by becoming more responsible, more compassionate, creative, and present? Oddly enough, an emphasis on personal development is either missing or marginalized in traditional schools as it’s typically considered silly and unnecessary. However, rather than minimizing its role, 21st-century education requires personal development as the foundation for student growth and success.
 

1. Being an Effective Learner

Hard work and studying matter. But they’re no longer sufficient. To deal with the abundant and ubiquitous data and information of our times, learners increasingly require presence, focus, and an optimal mindset. Consider the different results when a student spends two hours on pre-algebra with the mental model “I’m horrible at math” versus the same amount of time on the exact same subject with the mental model “Math is a puzzle that’s fun to figure out.” A core practice in personal development is becoming aware of one’s attitude and mindset around a particular activity, taking full responsibility for it, and then embodying an attitude that’s more effective. Unless students are in control of their mindsets, they’re often resigned to drudgery and struggle to “just get through the classes,” which can color their educational and learning experiences for life.
 

2. Having Purpose

Getting through secondary school and graduating from college can be challenging. Without purpose, it’s often daunting, meaningless, and uninspiring. Students who have purpose, who have passion, who have a context for their experiences, are more likely to make the most of their time in any school. Developing an authentic purpose necessitates a level of personal responsibility, self-confidence, and self-awareness. When schools neglect to provide students opportunities to develop these characteristics, like anyone else, they are less likely to overcome challenges or connect with their inner fire of motivation. Worse, once structures of accountability disappear upon graduation, many young people are left rudderless, without a developed connection with their inner compass. On the other hand, when educational systems invest in teaching personal development practices, purpose and meaning naturally emerge. Students become increasingly likely to succeed on their educational path and even enjoy the process.
 

3. Embracing Change

There’s a saying that the only thing that is constant is change. I’d argue that even change is changing. What I mean is that the speed of change is accelerating. Driven by technology and demographics, there will be more disruption and change in 2017 than there was between 2000 and 2005. Successfully navigating change requires years of personal development work. Without ongoing practice, the vast majority of people automatically fear change, with many being prone to intense anxiety. With practice, not only can students learn how to stay centered and proactive during times of rapid change; they can also learn how to embrace it. While most are feeling overwhelmed and reactive, people who have been practicing personal development will create new ways of providing value, will discover new solutions, and will find ways to make a difference in the world.
 

At KọSchool, all members of the community engage in a sustained personal development practice. For our students we use group exercises, socratic inquiry, and personal coaching to expand their capacities of mindfulness, integrity, and self-awareness. Our mission is to develop “FutureAuthors”—students who continuously improve, can teach themselves anything, and are driven to make the world a better place. If you’re interested in learning more, please join us for a tour or our upcoming open house.

Letsie Khabele

Media Monday: For the pirate, the paleontologist, or the pianist in your girl—Magazines that empower

You may have seen some recent stories making the rounds on Facebook about the one-dimensional offerings in Girls’ Life vs. Boys’ Life magazines. And you may also have caught a mention here and there of Kazoo, a brand-new magazine for girls ages 5 to 10 that explicitly takes a feminist stance. Kazoo encourages girls to “make some noise” and features stories about science, exploration, sports, and other topics to engage young minds. There are no advertorials about fancy hairstyles or makeup here. Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls website—a fountain of pro-girl information, says Kazoo is required reading, and I agree. The latest issue, focused on nature and the great outdoors, looks like it will be out in mid-October.

Kazoo is a labor of motherly love, created by Erin Bried and funded by a record-breaking Kickstarter campaign. Bried just couldn’t find any magazines her daughter liked at the newsstand. “Every single title on the rack sends the message that there’s only one right way for a girl to look, dress, and act, and it’s usually like a princess. My daughter happens to prefer pirates, so we left empty-handed.”

Currently, Kazoo is only available in print and only published four times a year, at a fairly pricey $12.50 per issue or $50 per year.  But it’s possible the number of issues will go up, and the price will come down a little as it gets more established. I only wish Bried’s team would launch a companion magazine for girls ages 11 to 16, since we all know that those are the years when girls tend to lose their confidence and assertiveness, often retreating from their interest in pirates. You can follow Kazoo on Facebook to find out the latest info.

Seeing Kazoo and the great welcome it seems to have received among parents and the press inspired me to look around a little for other magazines for girls—and also by girls and boys. Here are a few I found that are worth looking at with your kids:

Shameless is a Canadian teen magazine aimed at girls and also trans youth. The topics tend toward culture and politics, and each issue usually includes profiles of cool women, a little sports, crafts, tech, and other on-trend topics. Unfortunately, it only comes out three times a year and is rare in U.S. bookstores, but the great thing is that you can download full issues from their site at only $5 each. The blog that goes with the magazine offers tons of unique articles, and the diversity of the bloggers is a major plus. Definitely worth a look if your kid likes music, the arts, politics, and Canadians—well, who doesn’t like Canadians? And they take art and story pitches from readers!

New Moon Girls is by and for girls ages 9 to 16 and has been around since the 1990s. The magazine takes a community focus, with an online component that connects girls and offers intellectual and emotional support during the tough tween and teen years. The magazine features an amazing variety of stories looking at girls’ lives worldwide, fiction, health, crafts, careers, science—and actively encourages submissions from young writers. It’s published six times a year, with a $40 subscription.

I also ran across an online news site called Teen Voices, which is an offshoot of the nonprofit Women’s eNews. Apparently, there used to be a print version, but it doesn’t seem to be published anymore. This site offers an opportunity for teen girls to write and report on stories they are passionate about and has an expansive global vision.

For girls and boys:

You’re probably familiar with the Cricket media empire for kids—they produce high-quality educational magazines for all ages. One I was not familiar with, but which is focused on the sciences, with a little history and archaeology thrown in for good measure sometimes, is MUSE, for kids ages 9 to 14. They offer a sample issue to check out with your kids and publish nine issues a year, with reasonably priced print and digital subscriptions.

And there’s a great Texas-based magazine, Creative Kids, for ages 8 to16, that includes art, essays, and stories submitted by kids and for kids. It’s a quarterly paper magazine, but there is a limited online version and a blog. I love the way this one encourages young writers and artists and takes them seriously as creators.

I’d like to do a full blog post soon about the wealth of opportunities out there for kids to publish their fiction and artwork, so please let me know if there are print or online magazine that you recommend!

 
Shelley Sperry

End homework! Or why the school day should end at 3pm

Stefany Bolaños is currently building Agora, an app built for teachers re-imagining the future of education. She teaches an economics course, has published three children’s books, and works with Junto Studio, a web development company. She is part of Startup Chile’s current batch. Startup Chile is Latin America’s leading accelerator, and the fourth biggest worldwide.

A quick Google search of the words “homework is bad” throws 31,700,000 results (“ban homework” yields a surprising 704,000). Clearly, homework is a controversial topic, and its opposition has gained force over the years. There’s a great deal of quantitative research (like this one from Stanford, or this from Penn State) that reflects how homework can have negative effects on kids. These are some of the reasons they give:

• It imposes time pressures on children.
• It leads to sleep disruption, indicating a negative relationship between the amount of homework, perceived stress, and physical health.
• It interferes with time otherwise spent connecting with the family.
• There isn’t even a correlation between whether children do homework (or how much they do) and any meaningful measure of achievement.
• Homework can be an improper tool to test a student’s abilities—it doesn’t necessarily show how well a student understands a concept.

These are all very straightforward facts, but there’s a reason that’s even more important: we should let kids be kids.

Picture a regular school day for your kid. She wakes up at 7:00 a.m., goes to school, and stays there for 5–7 hours. The bus picks her up at 3:30 p.m. to take her home. By the time she’s dropped off, it’s probably around 4:00 p.m. The average American high school student spends seven hours a week on homework, and almost 10 percent of fourth graders worldwide report spending multiple hours on homework each night.

Those are the numbers. But that which is unseen is important as well. What about the children’s life-long interests? What about free time? What about running outside, learning how to fold a blouse, or helping mom or dad bake some cookies? Free time plays a key role in fostering both creativity and emotional development.

Without homework, kids might not have as much structure to their day. But that’s exactly the point! Traditional schools are sufficiently structured already.

So why should the school day—and school work—end at 3pm?

Because spending too much time in a school with structured activities won’t teach children critical life-coping skills. Autonomy is one of those. Mark Barnes makes an important point when he writes: “Responsibility implies autonomy, and homework offers none of this. Students are told what to do, when to do it, and when it must be returned. Where does responsibility come into play?”

Homework has another important deficiency: when students have already mastered a specific skill, they are likely to lose interest in repeating it. On the other hand, those who are struggling won’t necessarily improve by doing homework on something they don’t even understand. And we’re not even mentioning test scores, which don’t prepare children for the real world. Still, in case you were curious: the amount of homework completed has no effect on scores.

Not only do kids live less stressed with less homework; they also have the chance to pursue little passions, things that they enjoy doing—and enjoy learning. The alternative to homework is giving kids the chance to play, to rest, and to have fun. So much of their creative power relies on those little steps.

As Tommy Schnurmacher says: “Good teachers can get the job done in class. Those who can’t just assign more homework.”

 Is all homework bad?

It depends. My personal opinion is that if you treat homework as an extracurricular activity (or something that’s not mandatory), then students can voluntarily choose to do it, and by extension, learning takes a whole new meaning. For example, they can film interviews, conduct a field study in the park, or visit the aquarium during the weekend. The key difference is that this work is not graded, and the logic behind it is that learning can and will happen naturally at home or elsewhere in a child’s world.

Although there’s some research that suggests that as students age (especially during 7th through 12th grade), the positive effect of homework on achievement becomes more pronounced, other experts suggest caution against viewing the grade-level effect as fact. And even if it were true that the correlation between homework and achievement is direct for middle schoolers, there are diminishing marginal returns. For high schoolers, for example, two hours of homework appear optimal. So, in the final analysis, less is often more.

Stefany Bolaños