Agenda
8:30 Welcome
(Sharon Clark , Chair; Committee: Ruth Baker, Donald Harting ; Daniel Kuennen;
staff, Linda Jagusiak and Mila Tolley)
We have 2 purposes today, as you read in your invitation letter:
• to follow through on a commitment made at our last symposium to provide more information on "Place-based Education" (PBE); and,
• to pave a path for potential future forums which would serve more specific community interests within the context of
"Place-based Education."
With those purposes in mind, we engaged Margaret MacLean, an internationally reputed expert in education. In the midst of planning this forum, Margaret traveled to Japan to train educators there for a number of weeks.
She is a Vermont school principal, and an assessment facilitator with the Rural School & Community Trust (RSCT). Those of you who attended the Symposium will remember that one of our guest speakers, Nancy Jennings, sparked our interest in PBE by describing her work and experiences with educators in Vermont . That has to be a "hotbed" of PBE! Nancy Jennings' recommendation, and readings in the Rural News newsletter, sent regularly to all of us who attended that Symposium by Rachel Tompkins, the Director of the Rural Schools & Community Trust, pointed directly to Margaret MacLean as the right person, with the right stuff, to make the presentation today. She has planned the agenda, which is in your packet. It is a tight one, so I'll ask her, right now, to get us started. Please help me welcome her now!
Introductory Activity
"What is your name & role? What do you want to get out of this session?"
Goals and Agenda review
Goals for the Day : We hope you leave the day with more information and ideas around the following:
· Increased understanding of Place Based Education
· Ideas on how to integrate community issues into the curriculum
· Ideas and actionable next steps for your own work
Affiliation with the RSCT is free, includes participation in a network of rural schools and personnel, professional development opportunities, and research information through varied publications, which also are free. (See web site information below.)
9:00 Video (RSCT) with discussion questions
(Presented a portrayal of examples of work going on around the country.)
"How is the type of education in the video similar to or different from the education in your community?"
(See "Highlights" below.)
9:40 Text-based discussion with journal article:
Smith, G.(April, 2002). Place-based education: Learning to be where we are. Phi Delta Kappan . 585-595.
"Save the Last Word for Me" interactive activity
10:30 Break
10:45 Wagon Wheel activity (addressing these questions): (See "Responses" below.)
• What do you think this community needs to do to sustain and improve its quality of life?
• What are the benefits of connecting learning to the community? What can you build on that you know already exists?
• What should/could the role of schools be in community development?
• What role do you think this kind of community-based education can play in increasing opportunity for students in this area? (See "Reports" below.)
11:45 The Vermont Experience (See below.)
12:15 Q&A
Are we depending on individual teachers to develop and utilize place-based education?
Margaret: Yes.
What did you do to get teachers stimulated to do this?
I have an older person in town who makes the connections. Teachers tell her what they want to do. She makes phone calls, does the leg work. Most teachers have something they already do that they can build into something more with a community connection.
I'll end with a quote from David Orr, author of Ecological Literacy and Earth in Mind :
"After a century of educating young people to be mobile, rootless, and autistic toward their places, better ideas are gaining steam. David Sobel's book ( Place-Based Education: Connecting Classrooms & Communities ) is about a revolution in education that is connecting students to their neighborhoods, communities, and ecologies, and equipping them to be homecomers, stewards, citizens, and more. It is about joining heads, hands, hearts, and the places in which we might dwell with competent affection."
Reflection sheets
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