CORE ELEMENTS OF CURRICULUM

Place-based education uses the local community and environment as a vehicle for learning core skills and exploring questions that are relevant to Baltimore and to students’ lives. Place-based education increases student motivation and performance, helps students develop stronger ties to their local environment, and allows the school to make positive change in the community. Place-based education is experience-based, and in kindergarten, play-based. Students learn about the built environment, infrastructure, residents, businesses, culture, resources, challenges and the history of the city around them.

Related articles:

• Life’s Best Lessons are Outside the Classroom —Yes Magazine
• Changing the School Improvement Paradigm —Community Works Journal
• Project Based Learning for the 21st Century —Buck Institute for Education
• Promise of place —Enriching lives through place-based education
• The Center for Place Based Education —Antioch University, New England
• Place-based education: Learning to be where we are —Phi Delta Kappan

Partners:

• Promise of Place: Enriching Lives Through Place-Based Education
• Antioch New England Institute

At Creative City we weave the visual, musical and performing arts into its curriculum as a way to foster student-centered learning, reflection, and personal expression, and a way to deepen conceptual learning, encourage creative thinking, promote collaboration, and strengthen the social environment within the school. Using the arts in all subjects is our way of delivering information and instruction, and is a method of assessing student mastery. Students observe art to stimulate discussion on pertinent themes and make art to explore problems and reflect on lessons learned.

Related articles and documents:

• Renaissance in the Classroom —Harvard Educational Review
• Learning Through Music: A Model for Arts Integration —WGBH Educational Foundation
• Arts Integrated Curriculum Helps Students Overcome Challenges of Poverty —Learning First Alliance
• Arts Experiences & Arts Integration 2014-2015 —Creative City

Success stories:

• Second-grader Mehki Lee’s artwork was one of three pieces selected to represent Baltimore City Public Schools at the “Making Your Mark” juried youth art show at Thurgood Marshall, Baltimore Washington International Airport. The show will be on display from late May until November of this year.
• Ms. Gordy’s class wrote a play, “Foxy Grandpa,” that was performed in May as part of the Young Playwright’s Festival. It was chosen from a field of 600 applicants, and a monologue by Greg Green in Ms. Brown’s class was also performed.
• Amani McLean and Henry Walker (first grade) and Triniece Carter and Samantha Stanford (third grade) were featured in the regional “For Your Inspiration” exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Art.
• Amani McLean, in Ms. Mongan’s first grade class, and Celia Gieszl, in Ms. Carver’s third grade class, created two of only eight Baltimore City works selected for an exhibit at the State Treasury building in Annapolis, MD.
• Third grade student Teneille Woodard’s artwork, a print mural created by Ms. Brown’s second grade students, and hand-bound books containing prints and monologues by Ms. Carver’s third grade students are all included in the Arts Everyday exhibit, “My Baltimore,” at the Walters Art Museum.
• For the second time in a row, a Creative City student artist won the Mayor’s Holiday Card competition.  This year’s card featured Ben Klima’s snowman art work.
• Watch second-grader Earl Lloyd give the weather on Fox 45 News on YouTube!

At Creative City, we value student-directed play as an opportunity for learning, skill-building, and social development.  Our Kindergarten program includes a generous block of time for child-directed center play in each school day.  Teachers and other classroom helpers are engaged with students during this time to make links to curriculum, challenge thinking, and identify students’ own emerging interests that can later be woven into classroom lessons.  Adult engagement is kept in careful balance with giving students space to do their own problem-solving and negotiate their own social relationships. In addition to having a play-based Kindergarten, Creative City prioritizes play and daily recess for students in all grades.

Related articles:

• The Case for Play —The Chronicle of Higher Education (Feb 20, 2011)
• The Worksheet Dilemma: Benefits of Play-Based Curricula —Early Childhood News
• Let’s Play! Using Play-Based Curriculum to Support Children’s Learning throughout the Domains —Early Childhood News
• Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School —Alliance for Childhood
• Experiential Learning and Play in PreK and Kindergarten —Alliance for Childhood

Creative City gives young people the opportunity to be active thinkers and leaders through decision-making about their school culture and classroom. Parents, teachers, and community members all have a role in creating and supporting the school’s climate and curriculum. Our Board of Directors is directly elected by all teachers and parents, and includes teachers, parents, and community member representatives. Students, teachers, and parents share the responsibility of choosing new teachers and administrators.

All of our teachers use the responsive-classroom method for managing classroom behavior.

Related articles:

• Teaching Lessons —New York Times
• ResponsiveClassroom.org
•  A ‘Responsive Classroom’ in Robbinsville starts with the toss of a shoe —NJ.com
• Mental Health Efforts: The Real Key to School Security? —The Ridgefield Press
• The Responsive Classroom Approach —Northeast Foundation for Children, Inc.

Partners:

• Mariposa Child Success Programs

Creative City is a strong community school. This means we know that families, schools, and community resources make children successful together. We keep the lights on during evenings and weekends, making Creative City a hub of learning and enrichment for adults and older kids in our community, as well as our students. We build upon partnerships with strong organizations in the neighborhood, bringing their knowledge and wisdom into the classroom and into our whole-family programming. The School Family Association coordinates these efforts alongside the Executive Director.  We build on our community’s assets and coordinate programs, services or resources for our students’ whole families, supporting their needs, dreams and aspirations.

Partners:

• Alliance for Community Teachers and Schools
• Park Heights Renaissance 

• A Brief Overview of Progressive Education —University of Vermont
• Progressive education —Wikipedia
• Progressive Education: Why It’s Hard to Beat, But Also Hard to Find