News Stories of Interest
A story from PBS about improving middle schools made me smile: In classrooms off the hallway, clusters of kids from grades six to eight worked on wood carvings, scrapbooks, paintings and podcasts, while their teachers stood by to answer questions or offer suggestions. For two hours, the students roamed freely among rooms named for their purpose — the maker space, the study, the hub — pausing for a 15-minute “brain break” at the midway point of the session. Welcome to Community Lab School, a tiny public charter that is trying to transform the way middle schoolers are taught in the Albemarle School District — and eventually the nation. Experts say students should also be given “voice and choice” — allowed to pick projects and partners, when appropriate. Here, learning is project-based, multi-grade and interdisciplinary. There are no stand-alone subjects, other than math; even in that subject, students are grouped not by grade, but by their areas of strength and weakness. In t