Real-World Classes
Students discover learning in different settings
By Bobbi Mlynar
Saturday, November 4, 2006
The Turning Point Learning Center will reach a turning point itself this year.
The charter school is in the third year of a three-year deadline to meet success.
“They wanted to make sure the charter school was self-sufficient,” said Terri Peckham, administrator for Educational Services and Staff Development Association of Central Kansas.
ESSDACK hires staff, provides instruction, and oversees administration for the district, which provide the building for the charter school.
“There’s not an unlimited pipeline of funds,” Peckham said. “... The expectation is that (three years) would give you time to generate funds and be self-sufficient.”
Grants are available, she said, but the number of new students who enroll in the school will mark the difference between success and failure. Turning Point will receive money for each new student, based on full-time equivalency. Current Emporia district students will not be counted in that FTE tally.
All charter schools have special focuses, and Turning Point’s focus is real-world learning, with components that include community service and leadership.
The first of the three years was devoted to planning the school. Virtual learning classes, for children who need to learn on-line, began last year. The face-to-face class was added at the beginning of the current school year.
Turning Point offers an alternative to traditional classroom settings.
“A lot of the current research shows that, of course, one size fits all doesn’t fit all for the changing face of education and the changing face of students,” Peckham said. “One of the things that we’re trying to do is convey to the students that learning can take place anywhere. It doesn’t just have to occur in a school building.”
The virtual school spans the state, with home-schooled, private school and other students taking part in the lessons. Music lessons, science seminars that can be attended in-person and other options also are available to virtual school students to enhance their learning opportunities.
“There are no boundaries with the virtual program,” Peckham said.
Virtual school is for students in kindergarten through eighth grade, and enrollment already has doubled under the leadership of Gina Scali, school coordinator.
The new on-site classes take place at the Turning Point Learning Center at the old Kansas Avenue School building. That aspect of the charter school is led by Ginger Lewman, on-site coordinator.
“I didn’t know if this school was possible, but it is,” Lewman said, talking about the progress her 14 students have made in two months.
The students are in Grades 5 through 8 and represent a spectrum of learning abilities and levels. Some are gifted, some are not, but each of them shows progress that sometimes amazes Lewman.
“I’ve got fifth-graders learning German, Latin, Spanish,” she said, gesturing toward a collection of “Rosetta Stone” language-teaching compact disks.
“If you are not growing at this school, you will be invited to leave,” she said. “but you know what, they want to be here, so they are growing.”
The students often work in teams, with each member taking responsibility for a portion of the pieces each project will require to be completed. They create contracts to do the work, and the contracts are not taken lightly.
“If you’d told me six months ago this would work, I’d have scoffed,” she said. “Our kids really are a family.”
So far, Lewman said, there have been only a handful of requests to fire a team member for not fulfilling a contract. Those requests were handled through mediation and were resolved.
“Kids are starting to learn about contracts,” she said. “They’re starting to figure out about loopholes and they’re starting to figure out how to close them.”
Lewman’s primary job is to ask the “driving questions” that prompt the students to investigate and gather well-researched answers.
“They may end up with something different or better than what I had in mind, and that’s good,” she said. “I should have good little researchers by the end of this year.”
A recent study of earthquakes and techtonic plates brought enough driving questions to warrant a field trip to Tuttle Creek outside Manhattan. The youngsters tracked down experts in the field, contacted them to ask questions and get answers. They studied histories and first-hand reports, and learned about fault lines in Kansas and uniform codes that mandate criteria for dams and buildings.
From that, they drew conclusions that surprised them: Yes, Kansas is subject to major earthquakes, and no, Kansans are not “safe,” Lewman said. A 6.5 earthquake would turn Manhattan into an Atlantis of the Great Plains.
Although the results of their research may have been disconcerting, along with the knowledge gained, the students also got real-world experience, Lewman said. They practiced dealing with adults, finding out how to track down people who would have answers; they practiced manners and telephone etiquette and became more adept at making conversation. Those skills are not honed on a daily basis in a traditional classroom.
“I want to show them the links in the world. Not only in their schoolwork, but how important it is to link with the rest of the world,” she said.
The students have learned something else that is very important in dealing with others.
“A phone call is much more effective than an e-mail,” she said.
Last month, the students planned, organized and executed a chili competition to draw community members into their school and create a Neighborhood Watch zone.
This month, they are continuing work on a public service announcement about the “16 Habits of Mind.” Lewman said that one of the co-authors of “16 Habits,” Arthur L. Costa, is allowing Turning Point students to translate the habits into a vocabulary more easily understood by young people. That translation will be approved by Costa and is expected to be broadcast as PSAs on public radio nationwide.
Lewman has another major assignment in mind for later. She’ll ask the driving questions about whether global warming exists and, if students find that it does — and she believes they will — she’ll ask them what they can do to combat it. What type of energy will contribute less pollutants and be efficient, effective, and economical?
“They’ll consider the evidence, come up with an argument of how they believe,” she said.
Because she already has done research to prepare for the project, she expects the answers will lead to wind power. That answer will lead them directly into their next learning adventure.
“I want them to build a windmill here. I want us to provide electricity for this building,” Lewman said, adding that the windmill could be placed on top of the two-story building. “I want the kids to see that what they’ve done has made a real change. You can look at it from an ecological or economical (viewpoint). Either way, it’s a benefit.”
And she said she is confident her students are up to the task.