David Edwards is scared about the school’s first year.
In only a few weeks, 126 students will start at the Fred Tjardes School of Innovation, and its teachers, called collaborators, have a lot of pressure to succeed and prove their alternative model can work.
That’s why instead of sleeping Monday night, Edwards, a lead collaborator at the school, spent hours in the bathroom – so as not to disturb his sleeping wife – going over numerous note cards in preparation for curriculum discussion with the other collaborators the next morning.
“We’re doing something that schools have tried and failed,” said lead collaborator Courtney Luce during that curriculum discussion. “We’re doing something that schools are scared to do.”
Fear turned to elation Wednesday during a ceremony to officially open the school. School collaborators and local officials cut the ribbon on their small educational space in the old Right to Read building, 717 6th St. A crowd of about 150 turned out for the community event.
“This is what the future of education looks like,” Superintendent Deirdre Pilch said during the ceremony. “This is exactly the kind of school I wish I had the courage to open as a classroom teacher.”
Not only do officials want this kind of school, so do parents, she said, explaining the school brought enough students back into the district that their per pupil funding allowed the district to pay for the school. Although it has an alternative format, it’s still a District 6 public school and receives funding just like other district schools.
The school will operate on a model built on principles of natural learning through projects, discussions and guidance over traditional classroom lectures. In fact, the school completely forgoes the traditional classroom format, using open and adjustable spaces.
Edwards said it’s important to try something new because the conventional public education model isn’t working for everyone. The modern world, technology and jobs are changing faster than ever and public education – which in his mind has been behind the curve for a while – hasn’t kept up, he said.
“There’s frustration with the difficulty of moving the (public education) system forward,” said Kristin Klopfenstein, a University of Northern Colorado professor with the school’s Education Innovation Institute. “That is pushing people to think a little more creatively.”
Everyone is looking for new ways to better educate modern students, Pilch said. Trying something radically different from the traditional school format has risks. What if students don’t learn enough or the right things? But opportunities for progress come with risk, she said.
“The greatest risk is not trying and not considering other options,” Pilch said.
The public school system can trace its roots to the industrial revolution when educators tried to prepare kids to work well in factories, Klopfenstein said. Teachers tried to teach kids to show up on time, do what they were told and sit where they were told to sit when the bell rings. Most kids weren’t expected to go on to college.
“Schools haven’t really changed much since that era, but our expectations in the 21st century have changed a lot,” Klopfenstein said. “We suddenly think everyone should have a chance to go to college, and the schools aren’t designed for that. It’s natural that there is frustration around a system that was designed to do something very different than what we are asking of it today.
“I think there are a lot of people trying a lot of different things.”
Fred Tjardes School students will have to take the same state standardized tests as all Colorado students. The idea is that these alternative teaching methods will help students gain a better grasp of school subjects and perform better on tests – in addition to learning soft-skills like collaboration, critical thinking and problem solving. Of course, if that fails, school officials will have to face the same consequences as traditional schools.
But collaborators have their sights set past school tests and on the future.
Most jobs these days require workers who can think critically, problem-solve, come up with creative and innovative ideas and collaborate with others, Luce said.
“The point of school isn’t school,” she said.
New and evolving industries need new types of employees, and they need thinkers and creators, Luce said.
The old education model is not creating enough of those kinds of employees, Edwards said.
