Growing Kids Who Care Kennedy High School (continued)


teaching at Kennedy is the focus on sustainability. Its also really important to be teaching material that’s relevant and I really don’t think there’s anything more relevant than issues around sustainability. The reality is that the future that these kids have is going to be really different from what our lives look like right now. They need to be ready to deal with issues around energy and sustaining our forests and a more sustainable food system.’


A student named Morgan talks to me enthusiastically, ‘I’ve


been to all kinds of schools and this is best school I’ve been to. It’s cool because you get to go out and do lots of great things, like growing stuff in the garden, forestry work, environmental work. It changes the way you see things. There’s a lot more respect here too, between us and the teachers.’ This place and project based approach has been essential for


breaking down the barriers between school and community. As Horn says, ‘my first thought was that you really need to engage kids in the life of the community, outside of the school. So if it’s that segregation, where they walk in the front door of the school and they don’t go out you really just have this little petri dish where it’s difficult forkids to relate to the real world.’ The standing of the school within the community, and the sense of self-respect disadvantaged communities have for themselves, have also grown dramatically as practical projects have begun to make a difference to local environmental and social issues. Now parents wave as Horn cycles past some of the poorest and most challenged trailer parks in the area. One of his next plans is for a community garden and cafe right in the centre of one of these parks.


There is also a philosophy of helping others to learn. Kennedy


students teach in local elementary schools. As Horn says, “all of our kids have now taught agriculture, bee-keeping, water-testing, aquaculture with hydroponics. They’re teaching third graders and fourth graders these skills. And what’s happening is they have to prepare and they’re nervous and you see these toughest of tough kids, you know their eyes tear up and their voice shakes when they’re in front of a bunch of third graders. It’s beautiful to see actually. And then they come back and go ‘I’m never misbehaving ever again, that’s really hard, that teaching.’” Currently student performance is measured on the basis


of State tests. In order to gain a sense of the broader learning that each student is gaining, Horn already ensures that each builds up a portfolio of written work. But he is also planning a more radical move away from narrow subject assessment to a mode of assessment that fits better with the personal and social development that the school offers. “The one thing we’re looking at doing next year is doing away with the grading system, the ABCDF and moving toward a narrative system. So each student will have a description of what they’re good at and what they need to work on.” This can take account of the “portfolio of adventurous experiences”—from beekeeping to winter camping to community project work to performing at an “open mike” at the local Axe and Fiddle cafe—which Horn believes can have a transformative impact on a student’s life. Horn is also working on plans for a “walkabout,” which


would be a prequisite for graduation. “Walkabout” would be an experiential learning, self-driven, self-developed project that fosters good citizenship and also involves some sort of transformative experience. Horn says, “It’s not just ‘go create a project and good luck’. There’s a rubric, a step by step process. It’s been highly successful elsewhere...And kids chronicle their


Page 18


transformation in the process. Where kids are self-driven and it becomes a part of the culture for them to participate in something that is meaningful to them, that has positive experience and has intentional positive effect on the community.” Finding resources (in addition to the allowance for salaries


supplied by the State) to sustain school activities falls largely to Horn, but he is aware that the nature of the school and the kinds of issues it tackles give it a distinct advantage when it comes to finding funds. Partnerships with business and State agencies have proven highly successful. During the 2009-2010 academic year alone, for example, the school brought in approximately $700,000 to support its programmes and provide employment opportunities for its students. Tom Horn and I spend the last hours of the afternoon at the


local Axe and Fiddle, owned by the inspirational Hoedads founder Hal Hartzell, watching students perform at the monthly “open mike.” There is no dedicated music teacher at Kennedy, but many of the staff sing or play instruments and have passed on their skills to the students. It is impressive how hard students have worked to rehearse songs and compose their own lyrics, and it clearly takes a lot of courage for some of them to stand up there in front of their peers. Horn himself is persuaded to take a turn on the guitar with a band of other staff.


The last word goes to Tom Horn, “As a student teacher, I


kept asking these fundamental questions – by raising reading levels are we seeing kids matriculate into college or do great things with their lives? And there wasn’t necessarily a corollary between their academic scores and their potential as human beings.... And seeing five years down the road some of them are incarcerated – these were some risky kids. And at the same time you ask all these questions about the environment, whether its global warming or forest floor ecology and the issues we see in our own back yard here. Those are things I always thought about as an environmentalist. And there was a disconnect between the real world and education. Education was almost a form of segregation.... Now we are in a very interesting time in history educationally in this country. There were 6.9 million drop outs last year. Kids are feeling disaffected by the educational system. But kids [at Kennedy] are accepting responsibility for their role here because they understand that we are significantly different.”


Tom Horn’s top first steps (Kennedy High School)


1. Choose an achievable project that will have a tangible positive effect on the entire community.


2. Divisde the project into academic domains (lan- guage, arts, math, social science, etc.) and into phases, so it is clear to all staff which academic areas will be addressed at which point.


3. The caring culture begins with the principal. he/she should be hands-on, e.g., teaching class to give staff preparation time.


4. Where possible, a class should have one dedi- cated teacher to give time to forge relationships.


5. Begin and end each class-day with circle time for expectations/appreciations.


www.clearingmagazine.org/online CLEARING 2011


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62