So while Challenge schools all aim to offer every student a demanding and meaningful education, they often enter that task through different points.
Kids can learn a lot from taking a close look at the community close to home.
This term began with the Rural Challenge, but urban and suburban schools find the approach works anywhere. The arts provide that focus in Minnesota and New York City, where networks of schools use Challenge funds to infuse arts into every aspect of a child's learning. Arts education is not a frill, they recognize, but a powerful way of knowing and seeing that fosters creativity, communication, problem solving, and other critical thinking skills. Learning takes off when adults and young people work together on understanding and revitalizing the places where they live, Rural Challenge partners are finding. And many Challenge schools provide a similar real-world context by linking academics with the world of work. .