Overview
The Schoolhouse Partners Foundation is
committed to making a positive difference within public and private
schools by supporting classroom teachers across the central Indiana
region and beyond. The success of our financial commitment to education
is based upon our partnership with local schools - enabling teachers,
parents, and their communities to ensure a quality education for every
child. The Partners in Education Fund helps children from
preschool through high school, providing financial assistance in
everything from early childhood reading programs to career exploration
initiatives for graduating seniors.
The programs outlined below contain information and our suggestions
on how to get involved and take advantage of our education programs at
your school:
» Professional Development: Learning the Ropes
» Beyond the Bar: A "Hands-On" and "Ears-Open" Approach
» Curriculum Development: Individualizing Instruction
» Mentoring: Making It Personal
» Career Exploration: A Key to the Future
» Character Education: Teaching Responsibility Responsibly
» Before & After School Programs: Beyond the Bell
The school of thought at the Schoolhouse Partners Foundation is
centered around the lives of pre-school through 12th grade children. We
are dedicated to the development of their intellect and character. We
profess that teaching should be individualized and responsive to the
talents of each student, and that the curriculum must remain aligned,
rigorous, and a method of integrating the concepts and application
skills embedded within all disciplines. We at the foundation reflect
upon and encourage the process of investigation, discovery, and
creativity, each of which is central to meaningful and responsible
learning.
Professional Development: Learning the Ropes
According to the thesaurus of the Educational
Resources Information Center (ERIC) database, "professional
development" refers to "activities to enhance professional career
growth." The Schoolhouse Partners Foundation understands that such
activities for classroom teachers may include individual development,
continuing education, and inservice education, as well as curriculum
writing, peer collaboration, study groups, and peer coaching or
mentoring.
Michael Fullan,
Dean of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the
University of Toronto, expanded on this definition in 1991 to include
"the sum total of formal and informal learning experiences throughout
one's career from preservice teacher education to retirement." We
support this concept with our Partners in Education Fund.
Considering the meaning of professional development in the
technological age, the Schoolhouse Partners Foundation suggests a
broader definition of professional development that includes the use of
technology to foster classroom teacher growth:
"Professional development.....goes beyond the term
'training' with its implications of learning skills, and encompasses a
definition that includes formal and informal means of helping teachers
not only learn new skills but also develop new insights into pedagogy
and their own practice, and explore new or advanced understandings of
content and resources. [This] definition of professional development
includes support for teachers as they encounter the challenges that
come with putting into practice their evolving understandings about the
use of technology to support inquiry-based learning.... Current
technologies offer resources to meet these challenges and provide
teachers with a cluster of supports that help them continue to grow in
their professional skills, understandings, and interests."
Beyond the Bar: A "Hands-On" and "Ears-Open" Approach
We at the Schoolhouse Partners Foundation promote a "hands-on" and "ears-open" approach to learning, particularly in the areas of Language Arts, Math, and Science. In other words, we would expect that those who apply for Partners in Education Funds consider bringing excellence right into the classroom as they help students reach beyond the bar. With that in mind, we have partnered with some of the leading classroom teachers all across America. One such dynamic teacher is Greg Denman.
Greg is an educator, poet, speaker, writer, and master storyteller known for his stimulating presentations on language learning. He visits a number of classrooms all across the country each year, learning from and working with students and classroom teachers. He has been a primary and middle school teacher, author, and a university specialist in language arts methods and children's literature.
Greg presents with an actor's flair for spoken language along with a seasoned teacher's astute understanding of students and the dynamics of classroom instruction. Teachers and students of all ages have responded wholeheartedly to the magic he brings to language learning. His workshops are fast moving, inspiring, and highly applicable to the classroom.
The Schoolhouse Partners Foundation is open to helping all of our partner districts bring other dynamic educators into the classroom, in an effort to model "best practices" for both teachers and students alike.
Curriculum Development: Individualizing Instruction
We at Schoolhouse Partners believe that, given
the opportunity to construct their own way of conceptualizing, each
child will learn differently. Each child has unique talents, ways of
thinking, and levels of understanding. In supporting classroom
teachers, we should anticipate that children will learn at different
rates, and expect that children of the same chronological age will be
at different places in their social, emotional, and intellectual
development. Each child brings to the classroom a set of prior learning
experiences and values from their family and community. We further
believe that all of these differences are important to our
understanding of who a child is and how he/she makes sense of the world
in which they live.
The job of the teachers that we support, therefore, is not to create
a single perfect curriculum or a spectacular lesson, but rather to
observe individual children carefully to create instructional
strategies based on what each child needs.
Living in this diverse world of individualization presents
challenges and joys for both teachers and children. We at Schoolhouse
Partners further believe that each child is entitled to an equitable
and safe environment, which promotes acceptance and appreciation of
self, others, and the environment.
Mentoring: Making It Personal
The Schoolhouse Partners Foundation believes
that children should be well supported in the construction of their own
understanding. Although younger children do not always articulate what
they understand, they are constantly testing out personal theories to
make sense of how things work. In the classrooms that we help to fund,
we recognize the sanctity and importance of each child's personal work.
Both the Schoolhouse Partners Foundation and the Helping One Student to Succeed (HOSTS)
program agree that mentoring helps each child to personalize
instruction in order to improve their reading, writing, language
development, and math skills. By using HOSTS Learning systems,
classroom teachers are provided with high quality professional
development, superior teacher tools for making data-driven decisions,
and effective intervention systems guaranteed to produce results.
The Schoolhouse Partners Foundation shares the conviction that each
child is naturally curious and wants to learn. Therefore, we believe
that it is the job of the teacher, mentor and parent to facilitate that
learning. The classroom environment should be set up as a laboratory
for the child to conduct his/her research, with teachers and mentors
acting as coaches to the child. Children in our partner schools "own"
what they are learning and exhibit a sense of pride that is not always
found in traditional, teacher-led classrooms.
Career Exploration: A Key to the Future
The Schoolhouse Partners Foundation understand
that students today have more career choices than ever before. What
exactly do these students need to be successful in the workplace after
graduation? The Partners in Education Fund hopes to assist
classroom teachers in offering guidance to their students in the
exploration of the expectations that the employment world has for newly
hired employees.
What are the necessary skills that young people must have these
days? In 1990, the Secretary of Labor appointed a special commission to
determine the skills our young people needed to succeed in the world.
The commission's fundamental purpose was to encourage a
high-performance economy characterized by high-skill, high-wage
employment. Although the commission completed its work in 1992, the SCAN findings continue to be a vital source of information for both teachers and students.
The Schoolhouse Partners Foundation supports the findings of the
commission's report, which covered Basic Skills (reading writing and
arithmetic, listening, speaking); Thinking Skills (creative, decision
making, problem solving, knowing how to learn, reasoning); and,
Personal Qualities (responsibility, self-esteem, sociability, self
management, integrity/honesty). The five vital workplace competencies
are also covered.
Character Education: Teaching Responsibility Responsibly
We at Schoolhouse Partners believe that
character education is central to the ethos of our schools. Each child
is responsible for sharing his/her knowledge and talent in a way that
enriches the rest of the community. We want teachers to teach children
how to listen carefully to others, how to help one another, how to
share what they have learned, how to coach one another, how to
participate in group discussions, and how to develop areas of expertise
where a child can assume leadership.
To that end, we have partnered with Character Counts and the Character Education Partnership
to encourage our local schools to create environments that foster the
development of ethical, responsible, and caring young people. It is the
intentional, proactive effort of classroom teachers, schools, and
districts to instill in their students important core, ethical values
that we all share, including: caring, honesty, fairness,
responsibility, and respect for self and others.
We at the Schoolhouse Partners Foundation believe that effective
good character education is comprehensive; it is integrated into all
aspect of classroom life, including academic subjects and infused
throughout the school day in all areas of the school (playing field,
cafeteria, hallways, school busses, etc.). Furthermore, it provides
long-term solutions that address moral, ethical, and academic issues
that are of growing concern about our society and the safety of our
children.
We further believe that developing tolerance for different points of
view and empathy for the needs of others is essential to the moral
fiber of a child. In the classrooms that we support financially,
curriculum is organized around big ideas, interesting problems,
interests of the students, and issues in the local community. Learning
is connected to the real world and children are able to build on what
they already know.
Before & After School Programs: Beyond the Bell
Currently, more than 28 million school-age
children have parents who work outside the home. An estimated five to
seven million, and up to as many as 15 million "latch-key children"
depart from or return to an empty home each day. When school is not in
session, the anxiety for parents often just begins. They worry about
whether their children are safe and out of harms way, whether they are
susceptible to drugs and crime, and who might be lurking in their
neighborhood. At a time when more and more of our children are spending
several hours each day unsupervised, the need for quality beyond-school
programming has grown. The Schoolhouse Partners Foundation feels that
high quality before-school, after-school, and summer school programs
can provide an enriching, safe place for kids and additional learning
opportunities.
In response to this pressing concern, many local schools have
discussed creating programs to keep children and youth out of trouble
and engaged in activities beyond the normal school day. Almost 100
percent of people polled in a recent survey agreed that it is important
for children to have beyond-school programs that help them develop
academic and social skills in a safe and caring environment.
First and foremost, the Partners in Education Fund hopes to
keep children of all ages safe and out of trouble. We realize that
after-school hours are the time when juvenile crime hits its peak, but
through attentive adult supervision, quality beyond-school programs can
protect our children. Such programs also can help to improve the
academic performance of participating children. For many, reading and
math scores have improved, in large part because programs that operate
beyond the normal school day allow them to get a "second dose" in areas
in which they are having difficulties. Many of these programs connect
learning to more relaxed and enriching activities, thereby improving
academic performance as well.
|
|
