No, we’re not talking about the much-disputed “School of the Future.”
Our friend Sandra Stotsky just gave a commencement address at Mystic Valley Regional Charter School. MVRCS is a Core Knowledge school with an IB program. It works to ensure that each student receives an education in the core subjects, including foreign language, art, music, and physical education. MVRCS also has a longer school day (8 AM – 3:30 PM) and year (200 days) than traditional schools, and the school actually separates reading and language arts classes! So far, every graduate of MVRCS has enrolled at a four-year college or university. Might this be because, in Stotsky’s words, the school acknowledges “a common body of knowledge that all must acquire”?
We think so.
Stotsky eloquently explains why we should care that our students don’t know much about history:
“The challenge you must all be prepared to address, especially in the next four to eight years as you go on to some form of post-secondary education, is why a common core of learning, and a common civic core, are necessary, not oppressive, in our society, especially today. In [Paul]Gagnon’s [Gagnon was historian in residence at the AFT] words: “It is precisely our common political heritage that frees us to differ from one another, yet live together in relative peace and liberty. This heritage is also what impels us to respect and defend the rights of those we see as different from ourselves.”
Sounds good to us.