As schooling became more the norm, a child’s inclusion and exposure to the wide world was more limited and controlled. However, as Neil Postman in The Disappearance of Childhood says,
“The world of the known and the not yet known is bridged by wonderment….where the child’s world…must seek entry, through their questions…As media merge the two worlds…children rely on news from nowhere….We are left with children who are given answers to questions they never asked.” At The New School we believe, and take time to recognize, that we are citizens of the world and the planet. We work hard to bring school and the world together in ways that help students begin to make sense of the natural and human environment around them.
We regularly work on a project called Making the World a Better Place. It is school wide and year long. Making the World a Better Place often begins with reading books about people or groups who have contributed to the well being of people and/or the environment. As we do this we begin to build a chart which classifies the information into who, when, where, vision and actions.
Throughout the course of the year we invite Mystery Guests. After initial guessing, the guest confirms or informs the school about what they have come to share followed by and open-ended question period at the end. Mystery Guests provide context for our Social Studies, Science and Art.
• During the 2016 election older children studying government were assigned sections of four different party platforms. They developed questions to ask representatives from the Republican, Democratic, Green and Libertarian parties.
• A parent who had spent 3 weeks doing research in the Antarctic came to show slides and answer questions.
• One of our alumni, who had travelled the world as a jazz musician, came and played for the children before he left for California to get his Ph.D. in political science.
• Nina Laden, an illustrator of children’s books, came and talked with children about her process.
Besides bringing IN people from many different walks of life, we also take children OUT on many trips for leisure and learning: trips to City Hall, Court House, Museums and Galleries, Historic Walks, local parks and streams, the Arboretum and Zoos, artist studios, scientist labs, Cornell Ornithology facility, SUNY ESF, The Children’s Theater at Le Moyne, Syracuse Stage, OCC for concerts, and the Bus Hub for helping the League of Women Voters to register voters. Our oldest students work with us and their families to find places they can intern whether it is a library, Syracuse Cultural Workers, a farm or a computer lab.
All of these experiences provide unexpected surprise during the weeks of school. Each visit to…or from…provides food for thought, unexpected dissonance or assonance to tease their thinking and widen their view through the window of experience of others. As the world continues to become a global community the children find themselves a growing part of that world village.