Proceed with Passion

Chapter 12: The Educational Village: Integrative, Inclusive, Interactive

149 Chapter 12 The Educational Village: Integrative, Inclusive, Interactive All of us do not have equal talents but all of us should have an equal opportunity to develop our talents. — John F. Kennedy All across America children and adults are segregated from one another. They are segregated by race and economics (often closely related); by ethnic groups and national identities — in Los Angeles, for example, there is a Little Tokyo, a Jewish-Russian neighborhood, a Chinatown, a Koreatown, and so on.They are also separated by learning modalities — consequently we have various special education schools where non-neurologically typical (NNT) children are segregated from neurologically typical kids (NTs). Even if they are on the same campus, NNTs and NTs are usually sequestered from each other. In addition, generations are segregated — children move away from home and seniors and grandparents are sent off to their own habitats. Not only do we segregate generations and ethnic-national groups from each other, more and more people are living in gated tracts and homes protected by private police. In fact, there are more private than public police today in America.The sad consequences of various kinds of segregation range from simple obliviousness to active hostility and violence. Conventional thought states that familiarity breeds contempt. However, we believe that familiarity often leads to greater understanding, tolerance, respect, and sometimes even true community. A further unfortunate consequence of these various forms of segregation in education is that the adults, teachers, administrators, parents, and specialists are also separate, and hence often do not interact and learn from one another. As a result, racial nuances, modes of teaching, Meaning is a blind god who limps through the actual world seeking any attachment looking for good company. — Chris Wallace-Crabbe By and Large Proceed with Passion 150 cultural variances and subtleties are not shared, while monochromatic perceptions of the world persist. Add to this the insidious trend toward cultural homogenization and we find the peculiar phenomenon of some groups remaining isolated from each other while their very diversity is being eroded by the mass-consumerist-materialism of the Western, particularly the American, world. To address at least some of these issues, the New Visions Foundation , a small group of educational reformers in California, has designed The Herb Alpert Educational Village to bring together an assorted group of students and non-profit organizations, each in its turn dedicated to diversity, inclusion, and interaction. Creating collaborations of non-profits through the sharing of physical space is an exciting and relatively new concept. For example, the Thoreau Center for Sustainability and Fort Mason, both located in San Francisco, are sites where multiple non-profits share space in buildings that would otherwise have been vacant. Currently, several non-profits across the country are looking to launch their own collaboratives in order to secure space at lower rent and as a byproduct, promote their own longevity. The New Visions’ design is, however, somewhat different. Our design takes the concept of collaboration beyond just the sharing of space. Instead, though still within the framework of offering lower than market-rate rents, the Village will focus on bringing together educational non-profits in both physical and philosophical collaborations in order to encourage symbiotic relationships to benefit pre-school through twelfth grade education. The Village will be a unique collaboration as well as a national model of structuring new paths of delivering educational services as well as encouraging new ways of thinking about education. Primarily, we plan to integrate three principles that too often are separate in our schools. The Village hopes to combine these elements seamlessly: 1. Inclusivity — We plan to open our pre-school (and by extension, a New Roads Elementary School) to all children, ranging from those with severe learning problems to the highly gifted; 151 2. Interactive — We plan to have all our pre-K through 12 students collaborating on tutorials, apprenticeships, one-on-one teaching, and independent projects; and 3. Diversity — The New Visions Foundation and New Roads School are committed to incorporating the highest degree of diversity — racial, economic, cultural and ethnic, international, and, now, learning differences in their program and investigating the best educational practices. The various partners of this Village (on approximately two-and-a-half acres) will include: ◆ an existing elementary, middle and high school, known collectively as New Roads School; ◆ a new pre-school — inclusive; ◆ a “school within a schol” for special education children ◆ a...