Notes from Shutesbury, MA Ron Berger's public elementary school in Shutesbury is an arts-integrated school. Curriculum is project-based. No textbooks are used. The townspeople strongly support the approach, because the results are so outstanding.
High standards prevail throughout.
It shows in the discipline kids develop, and in their learning. Kids are expected to work on draft after draft-perhaps 15 versions of a drawing, map, or illustration, with each draft an improvement. The kids have fewer final products than other schools, but what they have is high quality work, and something of value, of which they can be proud. The process of continuous work and improvement engenders pride in kids-it changes the notion of who they are. They realize they can do something of quality.