Alternative education post-pandemic: Where are we going from here?

We have an opportunity to create a new and better normal if we consider the needs of all learners
in re-entry. . . . As natural and human-made systems collide in unprecedented ways, young people
are growing up in a world where novelty, complexity, and mutuality are the norm. How we respond
in adaptive, thoughtful, inclusive, and creative ways will be the most important lessons we teach.

—Eric Tucker and Tom Vander Ark
“How to Reopen Schools: A 10-Point Plan Putting Equity at the Center”
GettingSmart.com, April 29, 2020

We’ve come to the fourth article in our series on the adaptations and transformations that are happening in schools here in Austin as a result of the sudden necessity of distance learning during the COVID-19 crisis. We started with a broad view of education in emergencies, then looked at how our own ATX family of alternative schools is handling social-emotional learning and injecting creativity and play into their evolving learning plans. Now we are going to look at a topic that’s on our minds a lot these days: What does the future hold? 

Without question, the way we educate our kids (and they educate themselves!) in the United States and across the globe will feel the impact of this moment going forward. Education reformer Tom Vander Ark sees cause for optimism “post pandemic.” He describes schools that embrace more personalized learning and flexibility based on competency. As we might expect, he anticipates more home-based and hybrid learning, with as many as half a million students just not returning to their regular schools. “Hundreds of parents will turn their homeschool into a microschool,” says Vander Ark. He also sees a boom in project-based learning:

. . . with state testing cancelled and a lot more flexible time, many learners are engaging in interest-based learning and impromptu projects. School closures have been a reminder that learning can happen anywhere. When kids return to school, some schools will respond with more project-based learning connected to local problems and opportunities.

Earth Native Wilderness School students turn their backyards and kitchens into botany classrooms.

And in very good news for our alternative learning communities, Vander Ark also sees the end of more than 30 years of preoccupation with testing as the main basis for measuring learners’ and schools’ progress.

Douglas Harris, an academic who studied the dramatic changes in New Orleans’s schools after Hurricane Katrina, says there are general lessons about how educators and students adapt to crises that we can learn from the New Orleans experience. One likely outcome of the pandemic is that there will be a few tools of distance learning that both students and teachers decide they like, and those tools will stick around. But it’s unlikely, Harris thinks, that there will be a dramatic move toward either homeschooling or fully virtual learning because there are too many disadvantages for the majority of families. Unlike Vander Ark, Brown also doesn’t think competency-based learning will expand dramatically in the long run. But there will be some surprising long-term indirect results of the pandemic, including putting more teachers and parents in the role of coaches, with students taking greater control of their own learning.

In our own survey of 35 Austin-area alternative schools, we found that all the educators are thinking about and planning for the future right now, with many focused on expanding just the sort of student-directed learning both Brown and Vander Ark are talking about.

Educators in the community feel it is their responsibility to support parents as far as possible in their new roles. In some cases that has meant continuing schooling online so that kids have a familiar routine and parents are able to focus on other tasks, says Eustace Isidore of 4Points Academy. And in other cases, it means guiding parents in setting up homeschooling, as is the case at Bridges Academy Austin.

One of the most consistent issues in our survey comments was dedication to student-directed learning. Cathy Lewis of Long-View Micro School explained:

Long-View has a cultural norm of “driving your own learning.” We take this very seriously as we are cultivating intellectually curious and driven learners. This norm was taken to a new level when we had to pivot to learning at home . . . We have seen some kids step up to new levels: We have one learner helping us develop content and several others choosing to support younger kids by meeting with them virtually or giving them feedback on work they’ve turned in.

Laura Sandefer of Acton Academy added that she believes parents have been “happily surprised” about what independent learners their kids are and that they do have the skills to drive their own school projects, even at young ages.

Clearly, the success of schooling right now depends on flexibility on all sides, and schools are trying to accommodate families’ needs. Acton Academy West Austin (the Westlake campus) shortened its spring break to help keep kids on track, and at Ascent, another Acton Academy, each family is getting one-on-one support tailored to their needs. Abrome and other Agile Learning Centers are working in collaboration to add new, optional offerings for learners.

A strong, kind, smart, and powerful Acton West Austin student opens up her home toolbox to hone some maker skills.

Beyond learners and families is the larger community, and the schools we surveyed are reaching out to connect there, too. La Tribu preschool is now opening to enroll students in a Spanish-language virtual learning program that mixes live classes and other activities. Jenny Alperin of Guidepost Montessori at Brushy Creek shared that they have created an online platform that is free to the general public so any family can join in interactive learning and find other resources. Long-View is also opening its micro school to kids beyond the regularly enrolled students who might like to take just a few classes.

So, what will the future hold for Austin’s alternative schools?

Some schools, including International School of Texas, AHB Community School, La Tribu Preschool, and Kirby Hall School report that they have seen an increase in connectedness during the crisis, with students and families feeling grateful for their communities in a way they hadn’t anticipated.

We see in all the schools’ responses a lot of hope for the future and the next phase of alternative education in Austin. There’s the hope, expressed by David Darcy of School on the Rise and Anne Remme at Speech-Language-Play, that small alternative schools, especially micro schools, will be among the first to reopen because the small class sizes mean less risk and easier social distancing.

David Darcy begins morning lessons live via laptop from a School on the Rise classroom.

Angela Griffiths of Acton Academy Northwest Austin says she hopes that parents everywhere will see more clearly all the realities their kids are facing. “It’s my sincere hope that they look at what their kids are being put through and say to themselves . . . ‘There’s got to be a better way.” And maybe that better way includes alternative education models.

Looking toward the future, journalist Anya Kamenetz reports that education researcher Maria Litvinova says the safest and best future is what most of our alt schools are doing already: keeping class sizes as small as possible. In Denmark’s International School, right now they’re sticking to 10 students per class. Other researchers suggest that staggering calendars for different groups of students, changing attendance policies, and improving both digital learning access and social and emotional support for all students are prerequisites in post-pandemic schools everywhere. Not only academic support, but also mental health support for students, says James Lane, Virginia’s state superintendent of public instruction, will be the top priority when kids return to brick-and-mortar schools.

In the meantime, educators, parents, community activists, and students are all thinking about the future and hoping that new and better ways of learning and connecting will emerge from this unusual time. As author Rebecca Solnit has observed in A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster, sometimes the worst of times can provide flashes that give us “a glimpse of who else we ourselves may be and what else our society could become.”

Shelley Sperry  |  Sperry Editorial

Creativity and play in distance learning: Alternative schools help Austin kids thrive during COVID-19

Bet your bottom dollar we work best under pressure.
(Yo teachers, I wanna like THANK YOU!)
Get your yoga pants set.
Gotta earn that paycheck!
On your mark, get set, let me go, let me Zoom!

—Emily Glankler and Akina Adderley
Zoom! A "Shoop" Parody for Teachers, Griffin School

 
We’re back again with more survey results from 35 Austin-area alternative schools. The first article looked at the broad topic of education in emergencies, and the second tackled social emotional education in this period of social distancing. This week we’re diving into the importance of creativity and play in many forms.

The educators who contributed to our survey suggest that making space for creativity in the curriculum—and unstructured play with other students—is an essential component in their child-centered learning strategies. As a recent article by illustrator Louis Netter noted, we are all necessarily turning inward at this moment, “to the vast inner space of our thoughts and imagination,” and we feel more keenly than ever how important the arts and creativity are to our well-being.

We’ve probably all seen some of the outpouring of creativity and humor from students and teachers on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook—with music, creative writing, theater, and art taking center stage. Locally, Griffin School’s Emily Glankler and Akina Adderley jumped into the fray, offering students a funny, timely comment on Zoom school life in a musical parody of Salt-N-Pepa’s “Shoop.” 

For isolated theater kids, unable to mount their productions in person, Skybridge Academy’s Brian Oglesby is donning a new costume each day to turn the ordinary into something a little more special, explaining that there’s a lot of joy in this innovation-by-necessity:

It’s like we’ve landed on this desert island. It sucks on this desert island. When we discover that by rubbing a couple of sticks together, you can make fire, there is triumph and a certain joy. Sure, it would be better not to be stranded, . . . but in the meantime, look at this cool thing we did.

Oglesby adds that his students are developing flexibility and even more creative thinking in a school that prides itself on always pushing boundaries. “Other schools are having to cancel their productions, and my heart breaks for them. We’re trying to figure out how to perform through video conferencing. It’s going to be its own weird thing, fit to the form.”

Play and child-led discovery—from giant bunnies to a virtual Earth Day

Lulu Bautista of Corazón Neighborhood Preschool offered us some valuable insight into her deeply held beliefs about the value of play, creativity, and discovery. Lulu calls what she does “Respite Care,” and it helps relieve children’s anxieties. It’s clear that lessening anxiety is one of the most important aspects of creative engagement in all the schools we surveyed.

How do schools do it? At Corazón, they use both tactile and virtual learning:

We've taken a trip to the moon . . . the children "hand" me items through the screen to pack in our group bag, and then we all buckle in our seatbelts and blast off, calling out the things that we see along the way and floating around our screens in slow motion! We've used our magic wands to turn each other into everything from sleeping robots to gigantic bunnies.

Tactile, “real world” play that moves kids away from screens for part of the day is a priority at many schools. For Bloom Preschool kids, dancing together and reading together are as necessary to the curriculum now as ever, even though it’s done at a distance.  At Acton Academy, educators are creating care packages of project supplies and other items that help with inspiration. Skybridge is putting together weekly “grab bags” of science and art supplies. And Ashley Reinhardt says WonderWell’s teachers have designed experiences around easy-to-get household items as well as curated learning kits they provide. For example, they give little ones who need some fine-motor-skill development an ear of corn covered with coffee grounds and a toothbrush!

WonderWell distance learning supply kits ready for “contactless” pickup by preschool families

The contents of an art supply kit made available for Skybridge teens to pick up at specified times

Anne Remme of Speech-Language-Play is creating an entire set of short videos for Facebook that allow kids to be involved in a virtual playgroup with reading, “table time” art activities, cooking, outside play, and even pet care.

Back at Corazón Neighborhood Preschool, children are encouraged to choose their favorite items at home and make up games with them spontaneously, which can lead to a lot of new learning opportunities on the fly. “One child created a pretend marshmallow store and roasted marshmallows to sell to us. But she only had enough for a few of us!” says Lulu. “We walked through our problem solving skills, and together the children came up with an idea so that others could partake. We did this all from behind screens, all through the magical world of pretending that children live and thrive in.”

At International School of Texas, older kids had the chance to do similar experiments in adapting their ideas to the world of screens. They held an art contest in a virtual art gallery and they also created a whole-school Earth Day project online.

Art with Ms. Bo: The International School of Texas art teacher shows kids how to make and use stamps from recycled objects found around their homes.

With so much time spent in virtual classrooms and chat rooms, it’s inevitable that students of all ages will get creative with colorful and crazy virtual backgrounds and morphing faces. Pam Nicholas of Huntington-Surrey says they are using an app that turns people on Zoom into hilarious creatures. They use it sparingly, but it works to bring the community together through laughter. Chris Ready, assistant head of school at Austin’s Academy of Thought and Industry, said:

Our student government is coming up with weird contests to keep the student body engaged. We are going to launch a ‘guess that student's workspace contest.’ David, our student body president, has sent out a survey asking everyone to vote on what should be done with his facial hair . . . 

Kids at Huntington-Surrey are revising their school yearbook to include the new world of distance learning they’re exploring together.

What’s also happening, says Kori McLain of Lake Travis STEM Academy, is that educators and students are becoming closer as a result of sharing and getting a peek at each other’s spaces, including all the “learning forts” kids are building. And students always come up with new ways to add some pizzazz to ordinary meetups. “We celebrated a teacher’s B-day by surprising her with virtual B-day backgrounds, and we all wore funny hats and sang ‘Happy Birthday,’” says McLain.

We’ll let Lulu Bautista have the last word on this topic. She says:

Our version of creativity comes from the same place it has always dwelled, the children. . . . [it] centers on finding ways to ground ourselves in the familiar and hold onto something consistent to help children retain a sense of joy and relief from uncertainty when we gather together, even if that means virtually.

Shelley Sperry  |  Sperry Editorial

Educating our kids and ourselves in times of emergency

Photo by Glen Carrie on Unsplash

Learning is a social phenomenon, and human interaction is a catalyst. Especially in emergency situations, learning is a social and emotional experience, so human relationships have to be a priority.

—Nishi Andra, technology for education consultant,
ICARE co-founder, and currently working with UNICEF

It’s hard not to gasp when you read the stunning statistic that nine out of every ten children in the world who are normally enrolled in school are not in class at this moment because of the coronavirus pandemic. An event of this magnitude remains difficult for most Americans to comprehend, but there are precedents on a smaller scale that can help us understand COVID-19’s impact on education. Disasters—from hurricanes and fires to wars and terrorism—affect large numbers of students in specific locations every year. Think of Syrian refugees or the victims of ebola in Liberia or earthquakes in Puerto Rico and Haiti. 

Prompted by a recent talk with Nishi Andra, a friend and collaborator with Alt Ed Austin who is currently working on an education project for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, I decided to look into the topic of educating students in crisis situations more deeply. In this article, I’ll examine some of the big takeaways and how they might help inform educators, parents, and students in the United States today. In the next three posts on this blog, we’ll zoom in to look at exactly how Austin’s own community of alternative schools is adapting and helping kids learn and thrive, despite the challenges. 

In a story for NPR, education reporter Anya Kamenetz introduced me to a field of research that’s about 20 years old, called education in emergencies (EIE). According to EIE studies, the learning time kids lose during a semester of extreme disruption like we’re all experiencing now can take up to two years to make up. As many of us can see in Austin and across the country, the struggle is especially hard for lower income and more vulnerable kids. As demonstrated not only in international crisis zones, but also closer to home in places like post-Katrina New Orleans, education disruption can have lasting effects on kids’ mental health and educational achievements.

First, let’s recognize just how unprecedented in scale our current situation is. Rebecca Winthrop, of the Center for Universal Education, says that in 2013, five million children were out of school as a result of the Ebola virus. In 2010, millions more in Pakistan saw their schools closed as a result of severe flooding. And in 1918, the global flu pandemic to which COVID-19 is often compared closed schools in 40 U.S. cities. Each of those crises affected only a small fraction of the 1.5 billion kids who are out of school in 180+ countries right now.

Still, EIE researchers believe we can use lessons from past emergency events to cope in the present. Here are the most pertinent lessons I think we can draw upon:

• Health Education: Parents and educators need to integrate education about the coronavirus and how to stay as safe and healthy as possible into daily learning time for kids from preschool on up to high school and college. Safety lessons about handwashing and social distancing and factual information about the science of virus spread can be turned into fun songs and games, but these messages are just as critical now (and for future waves of the virus) as are math and social studies.
  
  Health education is something that’s easy to forget with our own kids running around in home lockdown. We’re sealed up inside our homes or in our own backyards, so reminding kids to wash themselves or disinfect surfaces seems less urgent. Winthrop notes that many schools teaching remotely actually skip health information altogether in a rush to get other subjects in. But the fact that students are learning at home actually makes it more likely that health messages will turn into dinner-table conversation and stick with them for life—keeping them and the community healthier in the future.
  
  Austin early childhood educator Marie Catrett uses a cute story with a felt board and a comic from NPR to help kids understand the basics of the virus and how important good health practices, like handwashing, are. She shared her thoughts on communicating with kids about COVID-19 in a recent guest post on this blog. Some schools in the Austin area provide regular opportunities for students to ask questions. For example, the school nurse at the International School of Texas hosts “wellness chats” each Tuesday and Thursday.

• The Power of Routine and Ritual: Another lesson from research on education in emergencies is that routines—especially morning routines—matter. Jamie Weiss-Yagoda, of the International Rescue Committee, says that any routine educational activities parents put in place each day can “give young people a sense of stability amid rapid change.” A routine, no matter how simple, can counteract feelings of dislocation and chaos that children feel during an emergency disruption. Knowing what to expect each morning can soothe anxiety for kids—and parents, too!
  
  In some refugee camps in Greece, UNICEF is providing daily podcast lessons with students’ regular teachers, maintaining the social distancing requirements, but giving kids a sense of continuity and contact as well as a regular routine to look forward to.
  
  Early childhood educator Beth O’Brien suggests that especially for young children, short daily points of connection with teachers is important. That can come via email, texts, videos, picking up packets at drop-off points, or letters in the mail. “Our goal,” says O’Brien, “is not to replicate a typical school-day schedule or intended curriculum online or at home. The goal is to help students continue to feel connected (to the teacher, to each other, to the school), known, and nurtured even though a significant part of their routine has been disrupted.” AHB Community School in Austin reports that classes are still holding versions of “community circles” and sharing time through Google Hangouts. Both students and parents can attend teachers’ virtual office hours to get help or just a little companionship.
  
  In a recent report, educators Armand Doucet, Deborah Netolicky, Koen Timmers, and Francis Tuscano found that older kids may be experiencing a period of mourning because they’ve lost events and traditions they look forward to all year—a special field trip, prom, a science fair, and of course, graduation. In Austin, Griffin School will be holding graduation at the Blue Starlite Drive-In, allowing seniors to decorate their cars and drive by to receive diplomas—with the full ceremony playing over car speakers! That’s some serious innovative thinking.

• Social-Emotional Learning and the Healing Classroom: The International Rescue Committee emphasizes the importance of creating a “healing classroom” that provides for the social and emotional needs of kids in emergencies. In keeping with the approach of many alternative schools, our schools-at-home should be supportive, comfortable environments where kids feel safe enough to follow their natural inclination to learn. Often, that means de-emphasizing academic expectations and emphasizing anything that promotes mental and emotional health.
  
  As Doucet and his colleagues put it, school can be a place where kids “are empowered to lead their authentic lives.” Distance from friends and beloved teachers creates anxiety and stress that needs to be acknowledged. Like most of the schools we’ve heard from at Alt Ed Austin, Roving Learners is committed to providing an outlet for anxiety. They bring kids together in restorative circles twice a day and work one-on-one with students to relieve the stresses inherent in this new situation.
  
  We’ll talk more about Austin’s alternative school community and its approaches to social-emotional learning in the next article in this series.

• Instead of “Getting Back to Normal,” Getting Better: Educators and policymakers across the world are viewing the current moment as an opportunity to make schools better when kids return and to be better prepared for the next crisis. Some of the ways folks are rethinking the future of education to serve all students’ needs include things that we can work on right now with our kids at home:

• Finding better avenues for peer-to-peer connections for both kids and educators. Most students today are experts at staying in contact via social media of all kinds, but transitioning the tools they use regularly for fun into tools that can deepen and enhance learning is a challenge for educators. One piece of advice from education expert Erika E. Smith that applies to both educators and parents is to allow students to build connections on their own. They may want to use online forums or just exchange contact information without involving adults, and that will often allow for more comfortable sharing of ideas and information. Educators and parents have the same need to share ideas and help each other. Nishi Andra shared a touching story with me about teachers in other countries creating video lessons in the Rohingya language to help and support teachers in refugee camps. 

• Bending and breaking old rules that clearly don’t work or don’t serve kids’ needs. Some schools are saying it’s okay for academic lessons and specific content expectations to lapse right now and planning to develop summer school courses for catching up later. Many states, including Texas, are canceling standardized tests, and colleges are waiving admissions requirements for SAT and ACT scores—and using the moment to reconsider whether they will be needed in the future.

• Building stronger, deeper relationships between families and schools. In a national survey last year, only half of parents reported communicating with their child’s teacher outside of formal parent-teacher conferences and less than 75 percent were helping kids with homework. Those statistics may change as a result of the changes happening in almost every family right now.

• Making sure that free, high-quality technology and Internet connectivity is available to everyone, or if that’s not possible, investing in alternatives. Technology is a pivotal aspect of almost every discussion of the learning that’s taking place at home right now. At the same time, we know that many students don’t have access to the hardware they need or reliable Internet connections. Providing those essentials is a challenge for public policy in the coming years. At the moment, though, a lot of communities are finding that some older, tried-and-true technologies, including public radio and TV, can bring content to almost every student. 

In an op-ed about the impact of the Korean conflict of the 1950s on education in South Korea, Woody Paik emphasized crises as opportunities for growth and improvement, and schools as tools for recovery. The world can become a classroom and a laboratory for kids, parents, schools, and communities to experiment and explore new paths for learning. In the next three articles in this series, we’ll see how more than 30 of Austin’s alternative schools are doing just that.

To Learn More:

Armand Doucet, et al., “Thinking About Pedagogy in an Unfolding Pandemic,” March 19, 2020

Anya Kamenetz, “What Do Students Need to Recover When School Closes for Months?" NPR Morning Edition, April 1, 2020 

Woody Paik, “What the U.S. Can Learn About Education during Crisis from South Korea’s Wartime Example,” Hechinger Report, April 9, 2020

Reishan Richards and Stephen J. Valentine, “How to Keep School Rhythm and Routines for Young Children at Home,” EdSurge, March 17, 2020

Valerie Strauss, “If Online Learning Isn’t Working for Your Kids, Try Public Television,” Washington Post, April 14, 2020

Jamie Weiss-Yagoda, “Education Tips for Parents During the Coronavirus Crisis,” RESCUE April 3, 2020

Rebecca Winthrop, “COVID-19 and School Closures: What can countries learn from past emergencies?” Brookings Institution, March 31, 2020

Rebecca Winthrop, “COVID-19 is a Health Crisis. So Why is Health Education Missing from Schoolwork?” EdSurge April 3, 2020

Websites:

PBS Learning Resources

Learning Keeps Going 

Videos:

“How Learning Changes When School Happens at Home and Online,” PBS News Hour, March 31, 2020.

“‘You’re Not Alone’: How Teenagers Are Dealing with Social Distancing,” PBS News Hour, April 15, 2020.

“Teaching Special Education Online During COVID-19,” eLuma Online Therapy, March 19, 2020.

“Sesame and the IRC join forces to help Syrian refugee children,” CBS 60 Minutes, November 17, 2019.

by Shelley Sperry | Sperry Editorial

Announcing the Alt Ed Job Board

Almost as soon as this website went live, back in 2011, I started receiving messages from educators looking for jobs in the kinds of schools and educational programs that were featured here. Many of these inquiries came from teachers or administrators working in traditional school systems who were nearing the burnout stage and looking for a workplace where they could re-engage their creative talents, reignite their love of the learning process, and feel better supported both professionally and personally. Others were people who had attended or worked in alternative education in other regions and were interested in moving to Austin specifically to be part of a larger ecosystem of like-minded educators.

I tried my best to connect these job seekers with members of Alt Ed Austin’s network of schools and other educational programs that might have openings, but this tended to be a hit-or-miss proposition. It was time consuming, too.

Soon I also began to get requests from schools to post job openings somehow on the website. But I didn’t really have a good place or mechanism for doing so, and I wasn’t sure it fit into Alt Ed Austin’s primary mission of serving families looking for educational options. Still, I kept informally passing along information about job openings to prospective job candidates, and vice versa.

Then I received a desperate plea from a parent whose child’s beloved teacher was moving across the country for family reasons. She wrote, “We love the school. We love the teacher who is leaving. Our child and his classmates have been thriving here. But our school director and community are having a heck of a hard time finding someone who could even come close to filling her shoes. Can you help?” This parent’s message convinced me that helping fill open positions in alternative education falls squarely within Alt Ed Austin’s mission. Of course families want to know that open spots will be filled in a timely manner by great educators who are the best fits for their learning communities.

Thus was born the Alt Ed Job Board. I’m proud and excited to say that it’s been in its pilot stage for a couple of months now and is officially here to stay. Please pass the word (and link!) to anyone you know who is looking for fulfilling work in education or who has a position to fill in a learner-centered school, enrichment program, summer camp, or other education-focused organization. And to those in the midst of a search: I hope you find the perfect match.

Teri

Recommended reading from Alt Ed Austin

If you’re like me, you look forward to summer as a relaxing time when you’ll catch up on the reading that’s been piling up on your nightstand, in your brain, on your device, or somewhere in cyberspace. Then reality sets in. Maybe you’ll finish it before the end of July and declare victory. More likely, you’ll tackle the first book or two and get distracted somewhere along the way. Or perhaps you’ll skip the list altogether in favor of shorter magazine articles, movies, games, or outdoor diversions during your precious free time. No judgment here; they’re all worthy pursuits!

So, with August winding down and the new school year and less laid-back schedules looming, I won’t burden you with more “must-reads” to add to your “must-do” list. Instead, I’ll just briefly let you know about a few education-related books I’ve read since spring that I think you’d find both enjoyable and useful.

 

What School Could Be:
Insights and Inspiration from Teachers across America

by Ted Dintersmith

Ted Dintersmith is best known in education circles as producer of the excellent 2015 documentary Most Likely to Succeed and co-author, with Tony Wagner, of the book of the same title. His follow-up book, published this year, grew out of a full year spent traveling to all 50 states, visiting hundreds of schools (public, charter, traditional private, and alternative), and talking to countless students, educators, administrators, parents, and policymakers about innovative ideas they’ve put into practice in all kinds of learning environments.

Dintersmith is a highly successful venture capitalist, but unlike many of his colleagues in the business and tech world who have jumped into the education reform movement in recent years, he does not demonize teachers or focus on tinkering with new forms of standardized testing. He is less interested in talking about all the things that are wrong with conventional education (though he’s not shy about doing that too when pressed for his opinions) than in sharing and spreading the potentially revolutionary practices he’s seen happening, often hidden and unsung, at local levels around the country.

I had the good fortune to meet with Dintersmith (or Ted, as he prefers to be called by everyone) this past spring when he came to Austin for a special screening of Most Likely to Succeed and to talk about his book with local education leaders. I found his knowledge to be vast and detailed; his thoughts on the kinds of education today’s learners need are largely aligned with my own. As you’ll notice if you read What School Could Be, Ted’s enthusiasm is contagious. I imagine you’ll come away from the book as inspired and energized to make change as I did.

 

Mighty Writing:
College Application Essay Guide

by Laurie Filipelli
in collaboration with Irena Smith

This is a long-overdue public recommendation. For more than a year now, I’ve been privately urging parents of high school juniors and rising seniors to give their kids Laurie Filipelli’s guide to writing effective personal essays for college applications. I’m happy to relay that my own son, who’s heading off to his first year of college at the end of the month, found the advice and exercises in Mighty Writing to be fun, accessible, and just the stimuli he needed to think deeply—and eventually write creatively—about his own experiences, values, and aspirations for a very specific audience: college admissions committees. When Sam was ready to start writing his official submissions last fall, he drew on the lists and vignettes he had composed during the summer while working his way through the guidebook.

For unconventionally schooled students like Sam, those required and optional essays often take on an even larger importance in the college admissions review, helping admissions officers form both a more expansive and a more specific understanding of who the students are and what they might add to the university community. Admissions staff at several colleges that awarded Sam substantial merit scholarships cited his unusual essays as helping his overall application really stand out from the stacks of more formulaic ones.

Austin-based author Laurie Filipelli is an essay writing coach, a former Waldorf high school English teacher, a social justice activist, and an award-winning poet. She’s been busy since publishing Mighty Writing in 2017; in fact, you can meet her and experience her way with words firsthand at the upcoming book launch of her latest poetry collection, Girl Paper Stone.

 

The Self-Driven Child:
The Science and Sense of Giving Your Kids More Control Over Their Lives

by William Stixrud, PhD
and Ned Johnson

How to Raise an Adult:
Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success

by Julie-Lythcott-Haims

Some friendly advice from a me as a parent and education professional: Read, as soon as you can, either of these two books, or both. The authors take somewhat different approaches to the same general ideas: that children of all ages, but particularly teens, need WAY more independence and agency than our generation of parents has been conditioned to give them; and that we need to do everything we can to lessen the pressures in their lives, especially academic ones. Our kids’ mental and physical health and happiness depend on it. Both books include helpful, practical suggestions for how parents (and educators, too) can do just that.

Finally, if you’re interested in exploring more great books in the alternative education realm, check out the Alt Ed Library on this site. We’ve added lots of new titles since we unveiled it a year ago, and we’re always open to suggestions! Also consider joining the Smart Schooling Book Group, facilitated by Antonio Buehler, which meets once a month at Laura’s Library in West Austin. This month, it just so happens that the group will be discussing How to Raise an Adult.

Happy reading!

Teri Sperry
Founder, Alt Ed Austin

You’re never too young for your first draft: A roundup of resources for kids who write

As National Novel Writing Month, otherwise known as NaNoWriMo, gets into full swing this week, I thought it might be nice to review some of the options out there for kids who love to create lots of words—poetry, short stories, nonfiction, and yes . . . novels! I’m reminded every day that we live in a sort of golden age for young makers of all kinds, including writers. Kids can create their own blogs for free, and even produce books for their friends and family almost for free. They can review books and share their own work via YouTube, Facebook, Wattpad, and other social channels for creators.

Last year we talked about the Austin Public Library Foundation’s Badgerdog writing program, and we really can’t recommend those folks highly enough for their amazing summer workshops and other events throughout the year. This month, the library is holding NaNoWriMo workshops on Wednesday evenings at the drop-dead gorgeous new Central Library, and for younger kids, they’re sponsoring a songwriting workshop on Saturday, November 11, at Twin Oaks Branch Library. Details about both are here.

As for the elephant in a room of its own: the nonprofit Young Writers Program (YWP) is sponsored by the folks who bring the world NaNoWriMo every year. Kids and teens set their own writing goals, often along with a teacher or mentor. Some ambitious young writers over 13 choose to join the adult NaNo community and shoot for the full 50,000-word goal. Both kids and teachers have plenty of tools available, including workbooks that help with character building and plotting, prompts, and community events. Author superstars, including John Green, Daniel José Older, and Jenny Haan provide inspiring pep talks.

When I was looking for an example of a young writer who embraces the spirit of NaNo, Alice Sudlow, an editor at a writer-enabling enterprise called The Write Practice, suggested I check out a 17-year-old writer and super-reader who goes by the name of The Magic Violinist. A homeschooled dynamo, she and her family do NaNoWriMo together every year, and she has written novels, short stories, and hundreds of blog posts about writing and reading. In fact, she just wrote a post to help people find extra time for writing during November. And for skeptics, she explained 4 Reasons NaNoWriMo is Great for Writers. For kids who may feel isolated in the lonely endeavor of putting words on a page, The Magic Violinist praises the community created by NaNo:

Some of my best blogging friends have come from NaNoWriMo, and we keep in touch to this day. It’s hard to go into something like this alone, especially if it’s your first year.

When you sign up, if you sign up, poke around the forums for people who are attempting this for the first time. Strike up a conversation, ask the experts for advice. They’re more than happy to help a newbie out.

The amazing 826 Project is a national nonprofit that celebrates “the power of young voices, the possibility in their ideas, and the value of their words.” Long a community-based project with groups in seven big cities, 826 is affiliated with Austin Bat Cave but does not have an official presence in Austin. We talked about the valuable programs Austin Bat Cave provides for young Austin writers earlier this year, and we encourage everyone to check them out. In addition, the 826 Project recently added a rich digital component to reach more kids, parents, and communities—and this may be especially helpful for homeschooling parents or parents who want to supplement their kids’ school experience with more writing opportunities.  

The 826 digital site requires a sign-up and asks for a donation (which you can skip if you’re just looking around and exploring). I like the fact that it includes a variety of skill-building activities that are grouped by age and also by type of writing (informational, persuasive, poetry, etc.). There are lessons built around particular topics and genres and examples of student writing to inspire kids from age 7 or 8 through the teens. For example, Alexa Torres, a  Detroit fourth-grader, shared a poem about pizza that she wrote in English and in Spanish:

DELICIOUS PEPPERONI PIZZA

Smells like melted mozzarella cheese.
dripping on the side of the plate.
The pepperoni smells like spicy wasabi.
I can see pepperoni faces that are happy,
and the cheese looks shiny,
the dough peeking out the side.
The crust looks like crazy bread, and it
looks like a long snake.
On my tongue, it feels hot like chips from
the fryer.
When I chew, it sounds like mushy
Tomatoes, squish, squish.
When I eat five pieces, I feel as happy as
when I get presents from Santa.
The pizza feels heavy from the toppings,
and the cheese is like a gray tiny rock.

PIZZA DE PEPPERONI DELICIOSA

Huele como queso derretido de mozzarella
goteando de un lado del plato.
El pepperoni huele como wasabi picoso.
Yo puedo ver caras de pepperoni que están
Felices y el queso se ve brilloso,
la masa asomándose del lado.
El borde parece pan loco y como una serpiente
Larga.
En mi lengua se siente caliente como papas
recién sacadas del sartén.
Cuando lo mastico sueno como tomates
pulposos, squish, squish.
Cuando me como cinco pedazos, me siento tan
feliz como cuando recibo regalos de santa.
La pizza me cae pesada de todos los toppings, y
el queso coma una roca pequeña color gris.

Writer and editor Maya Rushing Walker and her daughter, young writer Allegra Walker, recently appeared on a podcast called Mom Writes, talking about their experience writing novels together and independently. Allegra, who is now 15, has written several novels during NaNoWriMo, the first in elementary school. Allegra is thinking of self-publishing some of her work and is in the process of revising a novel. She publishes now through the Wattpad platform and has a following of devoted readers. The podcast discussion provides an interesting user’s view of Wattpad’s pros and cons. Maya cautions parents to “take a look around” before suggesting Wattpad to their kids, and to understand exactly what’s on the platform. And Allegra talks about comments sections, reassuring listeners that negative comments are rare or nonexistent in her experience:

You can comment quite a lot on people’s individual chapters. . . . The people who bother to comment are the ones who love it. . . . If you don’t love it, you’re probably not going to say anything.

Another recent episode of Mom Writes discussed how young writers can use fanfiction to improve and distribute their writing. The guest was Michelle Hazen, who advocates for the creative power of fanfiction.

Go Teen Writers is a blog (plus Facebook community) that offers teens helpful tips, general encouragement, and a way to share ideas. It’s run by three published authors and writing coaches who clearly enjoy connecting with young people. They’ve written a book, also called Go Teen Writers, about how teens can go from first draft to published book.

Are your kids in search of real-life instead of online comrades for their writing adventure? In Austin, Recycled Reads Bookstore, which is affiliated with the public library, holds “write-in” events on Saturdays and welcome kids, teens, and adults for a little community and discussion after the writing is done. So pack up your crayons, pencils, or laptop, and let’s go write!

Shelley Sperry
Sperry Editorial