Investing in reorganizing schools to create a personalized learning environment is essential for child-centered education reform. Large, impersonal schools and large classes, fragmented schedules for children and teachers, and random assignments of students to teachers cause many children to mentally and physically withdraw from learning.
Teachers feel isolated from their students, their families and other teachers.
When children are known well at school, they can no longer be invisible, passive observers, and teachers are better able to help students take responsibility for their own learning. The second focus of this Initiative will be to help schools break down the isolation within the school, between schools, and between schools and families and community. Faculty, staff, and administrators will be engaged in a lively collaboration relevant to the world children come from and the adult world they are moving toward. Parents will be valued as equal partners, and their participation must be solicited and fostered. This Initiative will help engender in the community smarter, more patient support for reforming schools through an investment in community learning centered on children.