Introduction
We also believe that both inclusive prosperity and rightful presence are meant to apply to absolutely every student who enters our schools, and that it’s our job to fit the education we offer to the communities we serve more than it is our students’ responsibility to fit themselves into our schools. When we say “every student,” we mean that we have designed this model with intentionality around all aspects of identity, including the cognitive needs and strengths of each, the socioeconomic situation they’ve been raised in, the cultural and racial orientations of the family, and the sexual and gender orientation of each student. Students each deserve to experience appropriate challenge—not based on a limited or stereotypeladen view of what their identity suggests they’re capable of, but based on an expansive, inclusive conception of their potential as whole human beings and their inherent right to be seen and treated as such.
How This Book Is Organized This book offers a practical road map to inclusive prosperity for classroom teachers, curriculum designers, instructional coaches, and educational leaders. It not only provides theory, classroom stories, and broader case studies, but also the specific strategies that teachers and leaders need to put the landscape model into practice. We want this book to change how readers approach their work next Monday morning—not in some distant future—so supporting implementation has been a key goal throughout our writing process. Because of the model’s reliance on student-centered practices, the strategies offered connect to many of the trends in student-centered learning, including personalized learning, project-based learning (PBL), design thinking, authentic assessment, deeper learning, and learning for mastery, among others. We rely on the ideas and research of key thought
©️2022 by Solution Tree Press
systems. On a certain level, we all want the same things from education, particularly when it comes to our own children: that it be meaningful, that it be useful now and later, that it be enjoyable and appropriately challenging. We can use the landscape model across socioeconomic differences, for example, because other than professional development, there are no real costs involved in making the shift. Educators can use it with all age groups, across all academic disciplines, and in rural and urban settings. They can use it in private schools, in public schools, and in charter schools, although there may be challenges to overcome in more traditional contexts, particularly in regions where schools and educators have less autonomy to respond to the needs of their communities. And educators can use it in small and large schools and classrooms, though we recognize that tracking and managing this kind of learning may be easier in smaller classrooms, at least in the first year or two of implementation as educators build out their strategies and toolboxes.
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