CloseAbout Us
Philosophy
Introduction
Independence School is a Baltimore City Public School System charter high school program that allows Baltimore City youth to learn through real life experiences. We are in the business of de-schooling children and reintroducing them to their environment. The program directly confronts the present beliefs about schooling. We do not rely on a prescribed curriculum.* Neither do we rely on a hierarchy of supervision, nor on a strict code of discipline. Like the MET School in Providence, RI, on which INDEPENDENCE SCHOOL is modeled, our school is organized around experiential learning through internships and field-based projects and around the natural consequences that come from real world feedback on your actions.
We believe that for some students, school is most effective when it is tied to real life experience, real world constraints and a community of conscientious adults. Our school is organized around a few key adults who develop trusting relationships with the students, who know them well and over time. It is organized around individualized learning plans because students need a voice and ownership in planning their futures as well as clear support in meeting performance expectations. It is organized around demonstrated achievement rather than prescribed course sequences. It is organized around technology and taps the potential of on-line learning. It is organized around a commitment to traveling, surviving and thriving in the City and in the Wilderness. Finally, it is organized around strong local and citywide partnerships recognizing that community commitment to youth is necessary for students to achieve at high levels.
We create a communal space where people can learn to weigh freedom and responsibility. Our school balances a rigorous academic program with mentorship opportunities within the greater community. This is not an alternative program, but an alternative to traditional schooling. It is an innovative, bold solution to the present dilemma of educating urban youth to 21st century standards for college and the world of work.
Advisories and Individualized Education
Recognizing that learning takes place in a context and that it happens most efficiently as part of a community of learners, students are placed in an advisory group in the ninth grade. They stay with the same advisor for four years and meet with their advisory group once or twice every day. The groups have no more than 14 students. Advisories are tight-knit. Group members are expected to learn to accommodate to each other’s styles and habits. There is a strong emphasis on sticking together and relying on and supporting each other. Advisory groups frequently leave the building on short field trips, to walk to a near-by gym, to collect specimens from a local park, to eat breakfast together or ride a bus to the central library. We read books together, do team sports and go for week-long backpacking trips.
Afternoons are spent on practical real life projects and performances. On Monday afternoons, while staff meet and plan, instructional consultants work with small groups of students on various types of performances—plays, debate, choir, music. Tuesdays afternoons are for internships outside the school. Wednesday afternoons are spent in small workshops led by teachers and consultants. These workshops are tied to credits, but they are based entirely on interest. They include activities such as fixing and riding bikes, scrapbooking, building computers, home repair projects, gardening, making videos, and woodworking. Thursdays often involve trips to the central library. Fridays are reserved for whole school field trips involving an integrated curricular focus. For instance, a trip to a local park might include field work to determine the volume of water at different parts of a stream, stream quality tests, an examination of vegetation and measuring the height of a tree using similar triangles. Another trip might involve a visit to the State legislature to listen to bills that we have been studying in the newspaper.
Mornings (except for Fridays) are spent in advisory rooms doing research, reading books and newspapers together, working on math exercises, writing, typing, watching documentary videos, and discussing current events. On Monday mornings one advisory cooks for the whole school.
An individualized learning place serves to balance the student’s interests, strengths and needs and evolves to reflect the student’s progress over time. The plan is updated at the end of each trimester following the student’s exhibition.
* Though we make use of existing curricular materials.
Also in this section
