Appendix A
Introduction to Middle Village's charter:
The internet. Digital filmmaking. Bluetooth technology. Podcasts. Blogs, Flash animations, wi-fi, RSS feeds.
Juxtapose that with rolling fields. A rural village. A building that used to be home to a country store. A site where people used to meet: to talk, to debate, to dance.
Ours is a world-ours is a community-in the midst of a revolution, a revolution as significant as the one the world went through after Gutenberg invented moveable type. Just as the mass-production of books in the late 1400s led to changes in our society (the invention of childhood and schools) and our minds (the shift from relying on memorized facts to referencing texts), so too technological innovations and new media are reshaping our society and minds. These changes require us to rethink our education system and philosophies, and to retool our schools. We need to preserve and embrace the best of the old, as we critically assess and assimilate the best of the new.
This Middle Village School application is for a public chartered middle school in Deerfield. It proposes an alternative way of approaching middle grade education:
• Curriculum will be integrated
• Classes will be multiage
• Students will be engaged in authentic projects with actual audiences
• While building knowledge about-'and maintaining respect for'-tradition and history, students will develop skills needed to succeed in a world being changed by new media and technologies
By enacting this alternative approach, our experienced middle school teacher team is confident that the Grade Level Expectations (GLEs) will be addressed, and students will become better prepared to succeed in tomorrow's world.
Middle Village School will serve students in grades six through eight in a multiage configuration, beginning its first year with sixth and seventh grade. The school will gradually grow from 40 to 80 students in the first few years. Our staffing plan is based on one full time teacher for every 20 students.
Middle Village School may be located in a historic building on Middle Road: The old Progressive Grange Hall. This facility, a few minutes from downtown, is owned by Rachel Keyser, a strong proponent of this charter proposal. The building is surrounded by acres displaying a broad diversity of land use: There are berry patches, open fields, gardens, an old cow path, a woodland swamp-all within a one minute walk from the door. It is near the Deerfield Fairgrounds and within a half hour of two state parks: Bear Brook and Pawtuckaway. The building has a rich history, as does this area.
Introduction to Middle Village's charter:
The internet. Digital filmmaking. Bluetooth technology. Podcasts. Blogs, Flash animations, wi-fi, RSS feeds.
Juxtapose that with rolling fields. A rural village. A building that used to be home to a country store. A site where people used to meet: to talk, to debate, to dance.
Ours is a world—ours is a community—in the midst of a revolution, a revolution as significant as the one the world went through after Gutenberg invented moveable type. Just as the mass-production of books in the late 1400s led to changes in our society (the invention of childhood and schools) and our minds (the shift from relying on memorized facts to referencing texts), so too technological innovations and new media are reshaping our society and minds. These changes require us to rethink our education system and philosophies, and to retool our schools. We need to preserve and embrace the best of the old, as we critically assess and assimilate the best of the new.
This Middle Village School application is for a public chartered middle school in Deerfield. It proposes an alternative way of approaching middle grade education:
• Curriculum will be integrated
• Classes will be multiage
• Students will be engaged in authentic projects with actual audiences
• While building knowledge about-'and maintaining respect for--tradition and history, students will develop skills needed to succeed in a world being changed by new media and technologies
By enacting this alternative approach, our experienced middle school teacher team is confident that the Grade Level Expectations (GLEs) will be addressed, and students will become better prepared to succeed in tomorrow's world.
Middle Village School will serve students in grades six through eight in a multiage configuration, beginning its first year with sixth and seventh grade. The school will gradually grow from 40 to 80 students in the first few years. Our staffing plan is based on one full time teacher for every 20 students.
Middle Village School may be located in a historic building on Middle Road: The old Progressive Grange Hall. This facility, a few minutes from downtown, is owned by Rachel Keyser, a strong proponent of this charter proposal. The building is surrounded by acres displaying a broad diversity of land use: There are berry patches, open fields, gardens, an old cow path, a woodland swamp—all within a one minute walk from the door. It is near the Deerfield Fairgrounds and within a half hour of two state parks: Bear Brook and Pawtuckaway. The building has a rich history, as does this area.