Hershey Montessori School is a birth to 12th-grade independent school. Its curriculum is designed to help children master skills at different ages. Its programs are composed of multi-age classrooms that span three years and correspond to development levels. Experiential learning is central to its educational philosophy.
Thinking outside the screen Schools maintain focus on global education, experiential learning during a pandemic By VINCE GUERRIERI Crain’s Content Studio — Cleveland
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he trend in education – particularly at private schools – is experiential learning.
Students shadow professionals in a career field they’re interested in pursuing. Many schools – public and private – have some type of community service requirement. And trips abroad allow students to not just see other countries and cultures, but live in them, if only for a short time. “Lots of schools emphasize experiential learning as part of the added value,” says Michael Ciuni, director of fellowships in global citizenship at Hathaway Brown, a private girls school in Shaker Heights. He likens international learning to mortar, holding together the traditional building blocks of learning. But the onset of COVID-19 left faculty and administrators at many schools unable to get students out from behind a screen, much
less out of the classroom, and that posed some challenges, not just in offering global education opportunities.
“At first, we all thought, ‘well, we’ll have to postpone,’” she says. “Our crystal ball wasn’t that clear.
Gov. Mike DeWine’s order effectively ending in person school for the 2019-20 school year in March ended up officially canceling a lot of scheduled summer field trips.
“All ended up getting canceled. It was disappointing, but it also gave us an opportunity in a crisis to look at education.”
On a more elemental level, faculty are grappling with the idea of teaching global citizenship – with or without travel. Bridgette Nadzam-Kasubick, world geography teacher, social studies chair and director of global citizenship at University School, an all-boys school in Hunting Valley and Shaker Heights, said that five trips were planned last summer, to Costa Rica, China, India, Quebec and a Lake Erie sail trip. Each served different purposes, from cultural immersion to foreign language exposure.
Even as students returned to school in the fall of 2020, things weren’t quite what they were before. “We tried to maintain as close to what we had done before, within reason,” says Scott Looney, head of Hawken School. “Some things were just patently unsafe. “We tried to maintain athletics, but we couldn’t. We have a nationally ranked speech and debate team, and they travel all over the country, but they weren’t able to do that. The national speech and debate society was very creative and tried to transfer most of their tournaments to virtual. Like a lot of things, it wasn’t quite the same.” Anthony Fior, principal of Saint Ignatius, a Jesuit all-boys school in Cleveland’s Ohio 2021 CRAIN’S CONTENT STUDIO PRIVATE SCHOOL PLANNER 7
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