{"id":587,"date":"2019-11-15T04:36:32","date_gmt":"2019-11-15T04:36:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ericdaigle\/?p=587"},"modified":"2019-11-17T15:19:39","modified_gmt":"2019-11-17T15:19:39","slug":"just-6-months","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ericdaigle\/2019\/11\/15\/just-6-months\/","title":{"rendered":"Just 6 Months!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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SiTE Schools Dundas | Class of 2019\/20<\/p><\/div>\n

It was only 6 months ago that Tony Evans<\/a>\u00a0and I began casually chatting about the idea of extending his incredible Montessori school program (Dundas Valley Montessori School<\/a>,\u00a0Strata Montessori<\/a>) into the upper adolescent years. My simple pitch to him: what if we didn’t need a building?<\/p>\n

Look at us now! Two months into our inaugural school year with 10 of the most curious, engaged, ethically-minded, creative, socially responsible, discerning adolescents I have ever had the pleasure of working with. Our place-based education approach to high school has allowed us to integrate with the vibrant community of\u00a0Dundas, Ontario<\/a>\u00a0in a purposeful and positive way; learning spaces have included\u00a0Dundas Farmers’ Market<\/a>,\u00a0Dundas Museum and Archives<\/a>,\u00a0Carnegie Gallery<\/a>,\u00a0Grupetto<\/a>, Dundas Little Theatre<\/a>,\u00a0McMaster University<\/a>, The Printed Word, Dundas Library, and many more partnerships to evolve. Expert facilitators have included politicians, professors, authors, curators, nutritionists, scientists, entrepreneurs, social-workers, artists, and still more to come.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The Montessori adolescent pedagogy is the most progressive, value-based, developmentally aligned education system I have yet encountered. It allows for maximum flexibility and innovation, authentic student voice and choice, vertical integration, project-based learning, collaborative discussion, real-world experience, outdoor education, gradeless assessment, interdisciplinary mindsets, context-based integrated knowledge, co-construction of outcomes, and a dignified respect for the social\/emotional needs of teens. I call it a living curriculum because my main role is to curate a prepared environment, observe the self-directed learning process, and adapt expectations to follow student interests. In other words, I get to help guide their life.<\/p>\n

This has been a truly transformative experience for myself, my family, and my teaching career! I have never had so much fun innovating lessons and experimenting with new ideas. I feel so grateful and fortunate to be part of such a supportive community.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It was only 6 months ago that Tony Evans\u00a0and I began casually chatting about the idea of extending his incredible Montessori school program (Dundas Valley Montessori School,\u00a0Strata Montessori) into the upper adolescent years. My simple pitch to him: what if … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":160,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[29,27,13,35,12,21,32,17],"class_list":["post-587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-whole-school-innovation","tag-co-constructing-criteria","tag-collaboration","tag-curriculum-design","tag-disrupters","tag-innovative-teaching","tag-knowledge-integration","tag-life-skills","tag-personalized-learning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ericdaigle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ericdaigle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ericdaigle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ericdaigle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/160"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ericdaigle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=587"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ericdaigle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":592,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ericdaigle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587\/revisions\/592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ericdaigle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ericdaigle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ericdaigle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}