When visitors to the Bluebonnet Applied Learning Academy in Fort Worth, Texas, spend a day with our students and teachers, they invariably ask, “How have you managed to develop such a spirit of community among your students and faculty?” Our answer is simple. We develop a sense of community within the school by first discovering what makes a community work. To discover this, the students and faculty work in our own community.
Bluebonnet is an intentionally small public middle school (maximum of 300 students) that draws its student population from urban Fort Worth. In developing curriculum, the faculty wanted to acknowledge Lauren Resnick's statement: A think-oriented curriculum for all constitutes a significant new educational agenda. While it is not new to include thinking, problem solving, and reasoning in some students' school curriculum, it is new to include it in everyone's curriculum ... even minorities, even non-English speakers, even children of the poor (Resnick 1987).
Bluebonnet does not require any grade or behavioral prerequisites for entrance to the school, nor does it provide special classes for children identified as learning disabled, physically challenged, or gifted and talented. All students attend the same classes and work together on content-infused community projects as the focus of their curriculum.
When our faculty discussed designing curriculum for Bluebonnet, we agreed that academic content was of primary importance. We also acknowledged that students learn content knowledge best when they apply knowledge as they are learning. We wanted to model our curriculum after the Rochester plan described by Ray Marshall and Marc Tucker: It calls for sweeping changes in the schools and deep involvement of the business community at every point along the way. Its great virtue is that it shows why the whole community, not just the schools, must mobilize to get the job done. It portrays the tight three streams of reform that few now perceive to be related: school restructuring, school-to-work transition, and the reform of services to children. Skills are developed, it points out, not just in school, but at work, in the family, and in the community as well (Marshall and Tucker 1992).
The Bluebonnet teachers then posed the central question that has since guided all of our curricular efforts: What must students learn, and how can we engage students in learning this through community involvement?
Botanic Garden Project
- used cuttings from the botanic gardens to propagate new plants;
- created self-sustaining ecosystems for scientific observation and notation;
- designed a nature trail; and
- designed an organic garden.
What if we taught propagation so thoroughly that middle school students become experts capable not only of breeding, producing, and sustaining plants but also of dispersing information about their findings to some of the hundreds of student groups that tour the Botanic Garden every year? What if these Bluebonnet students initiated a student docent program and relieved the Botanic Garden staff of those responsibilities? In exchange, the Botanic Garden would supply cuttings for landscaping Bluebonnet Academy, both gardening and botanical expertise to guide students in their landscaping efforts, and an arena for students to demonstrate what they had learned. The Fort Worth Botanic Garden staff approved the project, and a partnership was born.
Students now had a real reason to use multiple resources to master botanical research. They read texts from school and public libraries as well as those provided by the botanic staff; conducted online computer queries with fellow botany students; and explored government resources, including the local county extension agent. They collected data and applied math principles as they analyzed growth patterns and made inferences about growth conditions.
The final results of the project began to multiply. Students' writing skills soared as they developed, revised, edited, and field-tested accurate and descriptive brochures and trail guide maps. Students gained confidence in communications skills by interviewing experts, leading group tours, and fielding visitors' questions.
Casa Mañana Theater Project
When Applied Learning Academy students learned that Casa Mañana, Fort Worth's nationally renowned professional theater, was interested in adopting the school as a partner, the students wanted to ensure that the theatrics staff understood the quality of work middle school students could produce. “We should make a presentation of our projects from last year so they won't underestimate us just because we're kids,” one student suggested.
The students developed a multimedia presentation to describe the process used to develop a previous long-term project. In addition, the students created activities that allowed the Casa staff to interact with them during their presentation.
After viewing the multimedia presentation, Casa's public relations director, Holly Nelson, and marketing representative, Philip Smerick, told the student team: To be honest, we had anticipated that our relationship with your school would be limited to an assembly where our staff members described their jobs at the theater. We also planned to invite you as our guests to see a play. After seeing your presentation, we'd like to go back to the drawing board and submit a new proposal for you to consider.
- developing a team of student playwrights to consult with Casa's professional writers as the students wrote their own play;
- developing a team of student musicians to consult with Casa's musical director as they incorporated music into their play;
- apprenticing student costumers to work with Casa's costume designer on costumes for Casa productions (this student team would also design costumes for the students' play);
- apprenticing a team of students to Casa's set designer and construction crew (this student team would also design the set for the students' play);
- learning how to apply theatrical make-up from Casa's make-up artist (these students would help with make-up at Casa productions and lead the make-up design for the students' play);
- learning the business operations of a theatre through bimonthly visits to Casa's ticket office (this team would take ticket orders for Casa productions and also be in charge of ticket sales of the students' production);
- apprenticing a student as assistant stage manager for a Casa production (this student would be head stage manager at the students' production);
- providing a professional director for the final student production that would be presented at the professional theater's location.
The Academy's student presentation team endorsed this proposal enthusiastically. Students became actively engaged in acquiring skills in writing, designing, planning, budgeting, and communication.
Japanese Foreign Ministry Project
A school district administrator asked the Academy students if they would be interested in planning the tour of a group of 32 Japanese teachers visiting the Fort Worth Independent School District. Several students began meeting daily to make plans for the visit.
- investigate Japanese customs and cultural differences;
- study Japanese schools;
- compile a glossary of Japanese phrases for Americans on the tour;
- arrange bus transportation and schedules;
- arrange lunches;
- provide catering and a room for the welcoming reception;
- negotiate for school district dignitaries to address the Japanese visitors at the welcoming reception;
- prepare the students' welcoming remarks to the dignitaries; and
- organize a class to practice appropriate etiquette for students to use during the tours, lunches, and receptions.
In his farewell speech, the lead Japanese teacher spoke to the students and school administrators: We were very pleased and surprised when we first learned that 12- and 13-year-old students were in charge of our Fort Worth visit. And we have been delighted with the students' competent plans. We thank you for showing us Fort Worth's schools and for allowing us to see what American middle school students can do. The proud smiles from the student team members displayed their sense of accomplishment.
Our school is filled with students of all abilities who beam with that same sense of accomplishment. Consider these other examples of learning through community involvement.
Health students study muscular development and physical fitness; they design, develop, and distribute work-out equipment kits and video instructions for children at homeless shelters who have limited access to outdoor play.
History students use research to develop scripts and video vignettes of historical events for the Texas Highway Department's Visitor Centers.
History students work with American Airlines to develop a docent program for the airline's new air museum and to develop an aviation summer camp for children.
Art students coordinate and implement a juried student art exhibit at Texas Christian University.
Language arts students publish book reviews for national publications, including The African-American Literary Review and National Council of Teachers of English's Voices in the Middle.
Science/math students participate in a paleontology dig to unearth new dinosaur artifacts.
In every partnership we must assure our business partners that the students' final product will not be made public until the sponsoring partner judges it to be up to standards. This requires extensive feedback from our community partners and teacher-supervised revision of student work. It is this community standard that drives the students to revise, reconsider, and improve their projects. They willingly work to demonstrate their capabilities to their community partners.
The work is hard and demanding—and frequently chaotic and messy—but the results are developing tomorrow's leaders and thinkers. It is well worth the effort.
