What is an Exploratory School, why is it important, and How has Coronavirus changed it?

This school’s name is the MS447 Math and Science Exploratory School. Fun fact, the math and science part come from the test you used to have to take to get in (now it’s a lottery). However, that’s not the focus of this article. The focus of this article is on the Exploratory part of the school's name. This comes from this school’s exploration program. This is going to show what it means to be an exploratory school, coming from teacher perspectives. The teachers that will be interviewed are Ms Grau, Ms Donofrio, and Mr Ensminger. They are all expo teachers at 447.

What elements make this/any school exploratory?

Mr Ensminger: “Before the pandemic, 30% of learning was off site learning, that was one of the big reasons it was exploratory, and we were out in the world at nature preserves and hands on activities; walking through neighborhoods, mapping neighborhoods were all big parts of expo.”

What would the Ideal exploratory school look like?

Ms Grau: “The ideal exploratory school looks like 50 or 60% of learning off-site and that we’re really learning about all the riches of this city and maybe spending first and last period here every time we go off-site. First period would be the intro of what's happening that day and then you would go explore and come back last for packing up and a reflection.”

How do you think Covid has impacted MS447’s ability to be exploratory?

Ms D’Onofrio: “Before covid, we used to have expo 5 out of 8 periods a day and this allowed us to go on big trips. When covid started, we couldn’t go on those trips, so we stopped the 5-period thing, since it’s crazy to go 5 periods straight on the screen. The benefit of covid, if there really was, was to really let us work on our curriculum and think about how to be more hands on in expo, but we haven’t figured out how we are going to go off-site and that’s the new problem now that the world is opening back up, we want to keep the changes, but we want to also get back off-site."

Why is being an exploratory school important?

Ms Grau: “The way I, and many others, learn is being in the world and learning things. As a kid I used to get a little stir crazy in the classroom but when I had something in my hands and I could interact with materials or meet people who had interesting professions, it was so exciting. I think it’s education’s responsibility to provide authentic experiences for students. In project based learning you get a problem and you use everything you know, all the subjects, to solve the problems. And in life you have problems and that is why you have to learn them at a young age with programs like Expo.”

Conclusion 

The Exploration program has changed since the start of covid. It went from 5 periods of expo to remote learning. Even now, with in-person school, students are still in the classroom and still have no trips. However, with covid rates lowering in NYC, there is a good chance that schools could be able to start going back on field trips. Unfortunately, the longest amount of time students have to go on a trip in expo is a double period, which is only an hour and a half. That is not enough time to go somewhere. Despite that, this school is still centered on being an Exploratory school, and in the long run, that’s what matters most.