Thursday, February 19, 2015

Reimagining the "Why" of Schooling

I originally wrote this post for City School of the Arts Journal, a proposed arts-based charter middle school I am currently working to co-found.


I recently had the opportunity to represent City School of the Arts at a conference on employment, workplace culture and innovation at St. George's House, Windsor Castle in the UK. It was a thrill to be able to present what I've learned from my students about creative leadership over the last decade to a gathering of Britain's leading innovators and change-makers in fields ranging from medicine and engineering to philanthropy and finance.

I'm a proud teacher, so talking about my students never fails to make me feel inspired. But this time the experience was particularly poignant. The setting for our gathering, St. George's House, is just steps away from a huge gothic chapel--a massive stone testament to centuries of hierarchical rigidity during which, if your great-grandfather was a serf, you grew up to be a serf. In that context, the opportunity to reflect on the experiences of students from low income neighborhoods who have harnessed creative leadership as a pathway to college and career--radically improving their socio-economic mobility in the space of a single generation--was especially moving.

Keep reading at City School of the Arts Journal