The Lab School: A Vehicle for Curriculum Change and Professional Development

To circumvent the restrictions typical of public schooling, Mr. Cardellichio's district established a Lab School that functions outside of the regular school program. With its interdisciplinary focus on inquiry rather than content, the Lab School experience has changed the thinking of students and teachers alike. The public schools are encumbered with thousands of rules and regulations that govern the way they do business. The structure of the schools, in turn, locks educators into certain ways of thinking about their practice and certain ways of behaving that are comfortable for them. These conditions make school change difficult to bring about. Those who have been frustrated by this situation may wish to consider creating a lab school as a vehicle for making changes that will have a significant impact on curriculum, school structures, and professional development. At Bell Middle School in Chappaqua, New York, we created our Lab School as an institution apart from the "real school" - an adjunct to the regular school program. All the teachers and students who participate in the Lab School also take part in the regular school program; the Lab School meets only during the summer, after the regular school day, or on Saturdays. In other words, it functions as another place for education to occur. Since the Lab School does not replace regular school, we do not have to worry about the regulations that govern the delivery of instruction in the regular program. Thus we can devote our energies to creating a brand-new image of school. We can start from scratch. Lab School sessions are of short duration - just long enough for teachers and students to explore a single concept or theme. The design and review of instruction are given more time than the actual delivery of instruction, which enables teachers to plan and reflect together. We established our Lab School to achieve goals in three domains: academic, structural, and professional. The Academic Domain In the academic domain, the goals of the Lab School are: * to provide practice in intellectual inquiry - focused not only on asking analytical and evaluative questions, but also on learning to ask what questions are appropriate to pose and on figuring out how we actually think about problems; * to delve into complex and demanding topics; * to create a curriculum designed around problems and the questions they present; * to create a curriculum that integrates modes of thinking from the various disciplines; and * to experiment with assessment techniques. The Lab School is experimenting with a new design for curriculum and a new approach to learning. The primary strategy is to appeal to students' natural curiosity and desire to question things. For teachers, the issues related to the academic goals are challenging. What is worth knowing? How do we engage students in real thinking, thinking with consequences? How do we embed inquiry into activities that will interest and engage students? How do we make sure that all students are engaged? How do we ensure that the content is accessible to all students? How do we assess performance in a way that tells us what students can do in terms of real tasks? The Lab School program is cross-disciplinary; the "content" is inquiry. How do we inquire? How do we analyze, evaluate, infer? How do we recognize assumptions that underlie our questions and opinions? How do we communicate our findings and opinions? How do we support our findings? These are the central concerns. The Structural Domain Our goal here is to redesign the structure of schooling. The Lab School has no "periods" - no discrete portions of time devoted to "subjects. " The Lab School is also committed to the creation of a learning community without artificial labels, such as "gifted," "handicapped," "seventh-grader," or "math teacher. " Too often, students and teachers react to labels and images instead of to ideas. …