Foundation: Parents' Participation in School Construction
Different from other private schools in new york, Avenues, with decades of institutional wisdom, was founded on the basis of involving parents of students in the creation of this new group and becoming partners of the school.
In September, 20 15, Avenue enrolled 740 students, with grades ranging from preschool to ninth grade (currently covering K 12 stage). And behind these students are 740 parents, many of whom are determined to design a perfect 2 1 century school with their high income and imagination of innovative courses. They include entrepreneurs and technology millionaires, star brokers and fashion designers, stars like katie holmes, hedge fund managers and artists who refuse to live north of 23rd Street. They want others to hear their opinions.
Avenues then set up a parent Committee, but the association has no rules and regulations. Therefore, people argue who can attend the meeting and who can vote. It is necessary to establish rules and regulations. For Avenues, this means collecting the charters of 30 other private schools for reference and even creating new charters. "Nothing has taken shape yet," said Jacquie Hemmerdinger, head of the Standards and Values Committee of the Parents Avenue Association (APA). "So it authorized 700 parents."
Educational idea: to cultivate humble citizens of the world
Abby Brody is the director of the youth department. After leaving another private school, she wants to open her own charter school to train citizens in the 2 1 century. Joining Avenues makes her very excited, because this is a school that dares to change.
"Most private schools are afraid of change. They don't want to show weakness in front of their parents. " Avenues encourages parents and teachers to work together. "Our teacher is willing to take risks. Although our students come from wealthy families, they come here to be influenced by our humble culture. Parents are well aware of this. Teachers build a big picture, and children know when they need to be leaders and when they need to be followers. They realize that the world is much bigger than new york. "
Educators from Harvard to new york often mention that Avenues hopes to cultivate enterprising citizens of the world and cultivate a sense of humility, which is not easy for children from wealthy families. Therefore, deliberately choosing students when enrolling students can not only cope with the rigorous academic environment and bilingual curriculum system of the school, but also agree with the school's school-running philosophy. Whittle said: "We hope that students can accept everyone. We hope to create a cultural atmosphere of mutual respect and a sense of security, not only a sense of security in life, but also a sense of security at the level of consciousness. "
Avenues is not concerned with cultivating Ivy League students, but with cultivating global citizens. "If you want your child to have a global worldview, international experience and language ability when growing up, then we are a good choice. If you don't think that's important, there are many schools that may be more suitable for you. " Whittle said.
Cultivating world citizens is the soul of the road. Even though other branches around the world have not yet opened, the school has launched various overseas study programs.
Education mode: immersion education
The purpose of the school is not to be bound by tradition, but to become a "new thinking institution". It hired experienced teachers and consultants to provide advice on everything from rapid response classroom training to stairwell design. The school provides immersion education in Mandarin Chinese or Spanish from the nursery, and every kindergarten student is equipped with an iPad in class. In the future, students will be able to choose to study in Sao Paulo, Beijing or any of the 20 campuses that plan to open several semesters around the world.
What sets Avenues apart is the immersion language course. Students need to learn all courses from mathematics to music in Spanish or Chinese, and they will not start traditional language courses until they are fluent in 10.
Whittle said that the immersion course is developing well at present, but some adjustments have been made. It turns out that children spend half a day in the immersion learning classroom and half a day in the English classroom. However, the teacher thought it was very troublesome to switch students, so he changed to study in English one day and study in the language of immersion course the next day. Parents think this is effective, and learning a foreign language can help children think more creatively.
Mr. Van Buren said, "This is the advantage of the new school. You don't have to rely on past practices, you can keep trying new things. In the past, students used round-table teaching method; Avenue uses the essence of ancient and modern times, and all the starting points are to find the answer to this question: What is the most quality education today? "
Mr. Bernie agrees with this. He is impressed by the teachers and administrators who are good at listening and adjusting in time. His children have made great progress in learning Chinese. When they take their children to Flushing Chinatown in Queens, they can not only read the road signs, but also communicate in Chinese. This prompted Bernie and his wife to suggest to the school to help students continue to practice foreign languages during the summer vacation. Now Avenues has launched a summer language course where teachers and students can talk in Chinese or Spanish through Skype.
principle of operation
Deep-seated leadership
Too many schools depend on one leader. Avenues has a broad leadership team, including a principal, three department heads (early childhood department, junior and senior), an administrative/operational officer and a teaching director. Although the person in charge of the school bears the ultimate responsibility for the quality of the school, the responsibility is scattered among a strong core team.
The best teacher
Teachers are the core of the approach. What attracted them to the avenue? First of all, excellent teachers want to teach in excellent schools. They are looking for exciting and thoughtful educational designs. They know the characteristics of a good education plan and appreciate the well-prepared approach. Secondly, teachers care about continuous professional development, and Avenues is especially advanced in this respect. Third, teachers are attracted by powerful school leaders, and they want to learn from those who lead them. Fourthly, many people are attracted by a school (director, department head or even principal), where they can be promoted in their careers. With its campus plans around the world, Avenues has unique competitiveness in this field.
Highly developed education plan
Avenues has a highly developed, coherent and ever-changing "education plan" to build an excellent school. The generation of this scheme is a highly collaborative process, and Avenues is always keen to design new schemes.
Comprehensive learning experience
Avenues hopes that students can not only get along with teachers and students in the traditional school environment, but also make use of the power and flexibility of new technologies. Students enjoy a wealth of teaching skills. Part-time job in traditional classroom environment; The other part allows small class students to participate in the project work; Often with the help of technology, I will spend some time pursuing highly personalized learning. This requires a serious commitment to technical infrastructure, which is part of the Avenue Plan.
A city is a campus.
New york City provides rich learning resources for teachers and students-from Broadway to the Museum of Modern Art, from Wall Street to the United Nations, from Columbia to new york University. There are hundreds of media organizations; Companies from all walks of life; Ports and airports; National, federal and local government entities. All these things will happen in the classroom. In addition, as Avenues opens branches in other parts of the world, students will have the opportunity to make other great cities part of the classroom. You don't have to go to school.
curriculum design
"School design" goes far beyond the curriculum, but involves many aspects of school life: educational goals; Course selection; Teacher development; Evaluation system; School culture; School calendar; Timetable; And hundreds of other decisions, each of which affects each other.
As a new school, Avenues has a unique opportunity to design courses and other components of the school from scratch. However, any curriculum design is based on a series of perfect factors, including national and local standards and the mission of the school.
The course design process of Avenues begins with considering these factors, and then uses Grant Wiggins, a nationally recognized educator. His method is called "Understanding through Design (UbD)". This method pays attention to the expected results first, and then draws the steps to produce these results in reverse. UbD helps teachers understand learning objectives, design assessments, reveal students' understanding ability and formulate effective learning activities. Developed by Mr Wiggins and Jay McTighe, the main idea of UbD is that the main goal of education should be to develop and deepen students' understanding, so that students can apply what they have learned in one field to understand other fields. By defining the student goals they want to achieve, teachers will reverse-develop their courses to achieve these goals.
The resulting curriculum design is an important part of the evaluation plan, which will enable teachers and managers to evaluate students' progress and development direction. The course can be adjusted according to the needs of students, improved and strengthened through many iterations, and more details are added in each iteration.
Then, curriculum design is not achieved overnight. At the beginning and end of each semester, the school constantly re-examines, fine-tunes and perfects the curriculum.
Future direction
The school's goal is to eventually build a "unique and dynamic education global village"-with more than 20 campuses in major cities in Asia, Europe, Africa, North America and South America. In the next decade or so, Avenues plans to establish branches in major cities around the world, such as Sao Paulo, Abu Dhabi, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Doha, Dubai, Hong Kong, London, Mexico City, Miami, San Francisco, Silicon Valley and Singapore.
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