It is important that educators strive to improve the quality of their classrooms and the learning experiences they provide. We can look to talented teachers and successful schools as inspiration for ways we can change our own practice to benefit our students. I have found a school practically in our backyard that is doing just that.
Lehman Alternative Community School is a public school, in the Ithaca City School District in New York State, which serves students in grades 6-12. Lehman Alternative Community School (LACS) is public and therefore, in addition to the school’s own requirements for graduation, the school must meet state requirements to continue to receive funding. The school has a strongly student-centered philosophy and states that its students take time to explore topics in great depth, rather than attempt to cover a broad scope with less depth. LACS’ students regularly score somewhat higher on New York State Regents’ exams than the state’s average. This is consistent with research cited by a number of authors on the measurably better results a student-centered approach to learning, with a focus on in-depth topic exploration, provides.
What LACS also has, beyond its focus on in-depth, concept exploration, is an Atlantic History course offered to students in 7th and 8th grade. This is something traditional public schools, as well as private and charter schools, almost exclusively lacks. The course, “Atlantic World,” offers 7th and 8th grade students a rare opportunity to explore an area of inquiry, which lends itself extremely well to an approach that stresses interconnections. The course’s instructors, David Westlake and Diane Carruthers, explain that the “Atlantic rim touches four continental coastlines within its framework: Europe, Africa, North America and South America. Holding regions rich in culture and civilization, this region offers a diverse means to study history through a cross-cultural context.” They state that their course will “explore the more familiar history of trade, commerce and migration around the ocean’s rim” and also, most interestingly, investigate the recent scholarship surrounding contact between Atlantic locations before Columbus’ voyage. This demonstrates that, not only can the use of the Atlantic framework be used with intermediate learners, but also the boundaries of what scholars traditionally consider Atlantic are being pushed. Remarkably, future directions for the field are being examined not just by Atlantic scholars, but also by middle school students.
Learn more from their website.
