Dive Brief:
- Since opening two years ago, the Grand Rapids Public Museum School has charted an innovative course of learning by including the museum’s collection into the student’s curriculum, bringing them throughout the facility and into the community for real-world learning, according to Edutopia.
- The school currently enrolls 120 students in sixth and seventh grade, introducing a new grade until it becomes a 6-12 program in 2022. The school is one of the district’s “theme” schools that were created in response to 20 years of school closures, budget cuts and loss of teachers in the city.
- Teachers collaborate with museum education staff to build curricula harnassing the power of the museum’s collection, allowing students to physically interact with pieces of history, and its rotating exhibits have enabled students to get first-hand experience with subjects that might otherwise exist only in the abstract.
Dive Insight:
As schools increasingly experiment with new models to enhance or replace the standard K-12 teacher-led paradigm, examples like the Grand Rapids school illustrate the opportunities inherent with educators and administrators utilizing the settings of their facility and surrounding community to their advantage — a move that can boast educational and economic benefits.
Place-based learning like the kind in practice at the museum school can utilize what is immediately available to students, educators and administrators. While most schools will not have a museum collection to draw from, place-based learning can offer an interdisciplinary approach centered on a student’s environment rather than an education based on classroom learning. As schools increasingly are encouraged to offer students a "well-rounded education," it can strengthen a student’s love of place. It can also help school leaders develop relationships with local communities and businesses, as the latter establishments become co-educators in the process of teaching.