Learning in these communities has value that reaches beyond the students themselves, said Ellen Kohtz, sixth-grade English teacher at Albion Public School. It needs to be the kind of thing that has value to the community or to the families. Albion is one of 18 communities in four geographical clusters across the state participating in the School at the Center Project. Lincoln Teachers College, School at the Center uses schools to revitalize rural towns. The idea began in the late 1980s when Paul Olson, foundation professor of English at NU, spearheaded a group of like thinkers who hoped to counter the attitude that a small-town existence is inferior to life in the big city.
Nothing is simulated here.
The learning is real. And the learning is making a difference in towns struggling for survival following the wrath of the '80s farm crisis - with youth investing in developing a new appreciation for their communities. Described as an education without walls, School at the Center curriculum transforms communities into working laboratories that span the areas of science, nature, civics, technology and the humanities. For example, recent Albion graduate Will Robinson spent his senior year conducting a flora inventory on the local Grant Olson Nature Preserve. We have it all on record on a computer database.