A Year at Mission Hill
What goes into creating a powerful learning environment for children and adults? Meet the teachers, families and children of Mission Hill as they experience the highs and lows of a year of self-discovery, exploration, and frustration. And join us for a national conversation about the state of public education as it is—and as it ought to be.
Ten videos. One year. A public school trying to help children learn and grow. The national conversation we need to be having.
TOP—AND OTHER NEW—STORIES. . .
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"You're Constantly Revising Yourself": The Dispositions of a Student-Centered Teacher |
| What qualities should a school seek when hiring teachers explicitly to teach in a student-centered setting? What dispositions help teachers thrive in the demanding environment of a student-centered school? As part of WKCD's study of everyday practice in six exemplars of student-centered learning, we asked teachers and students these questions. We learned that teachers who thrive in student-centered schools care about the "whole child," see themselves as facilitators--not deliverers--of knowledge, are comfortable with fluidity and change—and much more. | |
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What If Kids Ran the Schools? |
| Last spring, when Natalie and five other seniors at Houston's Hastings High School were invited to pick one thing about their school to change, their response was unanimous: they needed better preparation for life after high school. Encouraged by their guidance counselor, they hammered out a plan: an annual, semester-long course for sophomores aptly called “Your Future, Now!” and taught by seniors. Recently, they joined up with student teams from 22 other schools in Greater Houston with remarkable answers to the question, "What if kids ran the schools?" | |
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Winning Habits for School and Life |
| Doing well in school, we know, isn’t only about academic “smarts.” It’s also about habits, like self-control and motivation. These habits—or strengths—help us succeed in school and life. Like muscles, they can be built through practice. WKCD has created an 11-min video for students that introduces these habits; managing stress, self-control, motivation, persistence, curiosity, resourcefulness, and self-confidence. We've also created a handout with ideas students can practice to build their character muscles. | |
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This Is My Place: Middle Schoolers Talk About Social and Emotional Learning |
| What most helps young people thrive in a challenging academic environment? Answers from students bear out what research has found: social and emotional factors constitute a crucial underpinning for learning. In recent WKCD interviews at School of the Future in New York City, middle schoolers gave their own examples of how everyday interactions between students, peers, and adults affected how they learned in the classroom. | |
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An Insider's Guide to the Teenage Brain |
| If you're a teenage speaker brought in to address a crowd of teachers on the subject of how you and your peers learn best . . . what are you going to say?"I—have no clue," Ned Cephalus nervously demurs, his voice cracking with shyness as he disclaims his "exper-tosity" from behind the podium in this whiteboard animation from WKCD. "I'm just a very average teenage brain." Yet in his funny and fast-paced 6-minute "NED talk," this hand-drawn adolescent brain knocks out eight powerful conditions of learning. | |
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Advice for Parents: Helping Your Child Succeed in School—and Life |
| For the past year, WKCD has thought hard about how to better help parents help their kids succeed in school and beyond. We wanted to address character strengths kids develop through practice—persistence, resilience, self-control, curiosity—along with the standard prescriptions about monitoring homework. We came up with a 22-page handbook for parents that covers seven strengths, along with two multi-media presentations that form the heart of several interactive workshops for parents. | |
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Profiles of Politically Active Youth (Download PDF) |
| Young Democrats and Republicans. Occupy protesters and Tea Party ralliers. Youth delegates to both National Conventions. Youth running for local office. Youth creating their own political clubs and organizations. Youth who insist on “No Labels” and decry today’s hyper-partisanship. The young activists profiled here defy stereotypes. Whatever your political beliefs, these youth will turn your head. |
