About
the Center for Teaching and Learning
The
Center for Teaching and Learning was founded in 1990 as a
K-8, non-profit, demonstration school. CTL is accredited by
the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, licensed
by the Maine Department of Education, and has state and federal
tax-exempt status as a 501(c)(3) corporation. It draws students
from more than twenty communities in mid-coast Maine.
Before
it is an independent school, CTL is a demonstration site:
a lab school, at which the faculty conducts research and draws
on other educators’ studies, develops practices that
reflect our knowledge and theories, and helps other teachers
understand what is possible for their classrooms and schools.
CTL exists because its faculty wants to teach teachers and
children at the same time, and because we are determined to
teach as well as we can without waiting for permission or
approval. CTL is a teacher-run school. The board of directors
oversees the corporation and its financial status but does
not determine curriculum or hiring.
The
K-8 faculty consists of Helene Coffin, Ted DeMille, Jill
Cotta, Glenn Powers, Nancie Atwell, Katie Rittershaus, and Sally Macleod. The seven
teachers have drawn on research about how children learn,
including our own studies, to show how elementary schools
might be restructured. The CTL curriculum stresses real and
original work: writing and publication in all the disciplines,
computation, problem-solving, research, observation, data
collection and analysis, experimentation, design, building,
the reading of literature across the curriculum, dramatic
and musical performances, explorations in the graphic and
plastic arts, public service, and collaboration with other
learners.
We believe
that authentic activities such as these invite children to
engage in versions of the ways that adults experience the
world. Schoolwork at CTL has intrinsic value, transfers readily
to life beyond school, cultivates critical thinking capacities,
and motivates students to sustain the hard work that learning
requires. Our goal is an academic environment that is both
joyful and rigorous, one that gives students diverse opportunities
to demonstrate and strengthen what they can do.
The
Center serves approximately 80 students in five groupings:
K, 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, and 7-8. Class size ranges from 8 or 9 children
in the kindergarten to 16-19 in grades 1-8. Each day begins
with a meeting of all the children and teachers to make announcements,
discuss current events, practice conversational Spanish, sing
a song, and recite a poem. Students and their teachers circulate
among nine subject area classrooms and a gymnasium for the
remainder of the day, engaging as readers, writers, mathematicians,
historians, scientists, actors, athletes, singers, and artists.
At each
grade level and for every subject, instruction is organized
as a workshop. Class meetings begin with a whole-group
mini-lesson, and each lesson is followed by time for individuals
to try out new skills or concepts in the context of authentic
activities monitored by the teacher. In the workshops, teachers
introduce the standards and conventions of writing, reading,
math, history, science, and the arts; children apply these
to independent projects; and teachers circulate among their
students to help each child, reinforce what they have taught,
and introduce new skills and concepts in context.
Each year the science and history curricula at all grade levels,
K-8, revolve around two concepts. The paired annual curricular
emphases are 19th century America and energy and invention; making a nation and geology and paleontology; the first Americans and water; who we are today and woods and wildlife; and ancient civilizations (Egypt, Greece, Rome, and medieval Europe) and systems (weather, human biology, and astronomy). Children engage as researchers of the paired
concepts throughout the year, learning in-depth and collaboratively
about the natural and physical worlds and how history is shaped
by the actions of individuals and the circumstances of their
lives.
An important
component of CTL’s program is our emphasis on literacy
across the curriculum. The school uses few commercial programs; rather, children read about science
and history by tapping a vast collection of fiction and nonfiction
literature. They keep academic journals of their discoveries
and questions and produce reports in many genres; they also
take frequent field trips, study with visiting experts, teach
other students, and engage separately and collaboratively
in projects, research, and dramatic and artistic activities
that extend their learning.
In the language arts, children and their teacher meet in writing and reading workshops. The teacher, or sometimes a student,
presents information about skills or features of writing and
reading in a mini-lesson. Students develop their own ideas for
pieces of writing, and they draft, revise, edit, and publish
their work. In reading they choose their own books and
read. The teacher moves among students as they write and read
and provides instruction, asks questions, records observations,
and helps children keep their own records of their considerable
accomplishments.
CTL’s
approach to mathematics explores six strands of activity:
number, measurement, logic and problem-solving, pattern and
function, geometry, and probability and statistics. During
daily math workshops, computation runs as a thread through
the six strands. Exploration of math materials is an additional
emphasis in the primary grades, while algebra and geometry
are important components of the grades 7-8 program. In kindergarten, Everyday Mathematics is the basis
of the math curriculum; grades 1-4 are grounded in the Investigations program; the grades 5-6 math curriculum draws on Investigations
and Connected Mathematics; and grades 7-8 use Connected Mathematics, 2nd ed.
Students are evaluated three times during the school year,
on the basis of their own progress. Teachers keep records
of student activity in each subject area. Most of the work
produced by students stays at school, so their growth may
be analyzed and appropriate goals established. At the end
of each trimester, children and teachers select samples of
work and photographs of student activity for inclusion in
portfolios. The portfolio is a three-ring binder that provides
a permanent record of a student’s performance as a reader,
writer, scientist, historian, and mathematician. By the end
of eighth grade, a child’s portfolio will consist of
nine volumes of schoolwork samples, photographs, self-evaluations,
and teacher evaluations. Portfolios are stored at CTL in an
archive area and remain the property of the school until the student graduates from high school. Progress
is reported to parents during evaluation conferences led by
students and in end-of-the year narratives co-authored by
teachers and students.
Students
take responsibility for running and maintaining CTL. Job assignments
rotate every three weeks. Children serve milk, clean tables,
wash and dry glasses, set up the rooms, water plants, recycle
trash, shelve books, monitor classroom supplies and playground
equipment, collect and record donations, and ring the school
bell.
Children’s service to others is one of the hallmarks
of CTL. Students have collected dozens of boxes of materials for Safe Passage in Guatamala City and for children of war-torn Iraq, supplied food and toys to the Lincoln County Animal Shelter, adopted a finback whale through the
College of the Atlantic, baked for the People to People food
exchange, raised money for Oxfam’s efforts in Somalia,
donated emergency household goods to the Family Violence Shelter
in Augusta and many boxes of food to the Boothbay Region Food
Pantry, created emergency supply bundles to be airdropped
in Kosovo, gathered toys for the Parent Resource Center and
supplies for the Lincoln County Animal Shelter, assisted the
Audubon Society in fencing areas on Maine beaches to protect
nests of endangered bird species, collected pennies to adopt
and protect rain forest acres, cleaned shoreline, sponsored
a foster child from El Salvador from the age of five until his eighteenth birthday, helped support
a homeless family here in Maine, contributed to the Project
PeaceTrees effort to remove landmines from Vietnam, raised
funds for Red Cross disaster relief after the ice storm of
1998 and for the children in schools in lower Manhattan displaced
by the events of September 11, 2001, and participated in the
Maine Community Foundation’s Partners in Philanthropy
project, through which CTL awarded grants to Outright and
the Lincoln County Animal Shelter.
It’s
a necessary fact of life at CTL that parents pitch in. Volunteer
efforts take many forms. Parents serve as helping teachers
in reading, math, science, history, and art and on the playground.
They also help maintain the physical plant: construction,
painting, wiring, plumbing, sewing, cleaning, mowing, weeding,
and planting. They provide food, and they assist with transportation
on our frequent field trips.
Because
of our commitment to a heterogeneous student population, our
students’ parents represent many walks of life. They
have included fishermen, carpenters, teachers, small-boat builders,
bank tellers, an electrician, a seamstress, and sales clerks,
as well as physicians and lawyers. The official tuition is
$7,240 per year in K-8, but over half of
the children receive some form of tuition adjustment. In addition
to tuitions, which cover about 60% of school costs, CTL
is supported by donations from teachers across the country,
an annual fundraising campaign, royalties from books by Nancie
Atwell, grants, and revenues from the intern program and school-sponsored
conferences.
CTL’s kindergarten program is a full day, 8:30-2:45.
We accept up to nine kindergartners each year; their parents
must submit applications by February 1 in order for children
to be considered for the next fall’s class. Entering
students must be five years old on or by September 1 of their
kindergarten year. In March, kindergarten applicants
and their parents visit the school and meet with Head of School Scott MacDonald
and kindergarten teacher Helene Coffin. The faculty as a whole selects students
based on: the date of the original application, our assessment
of the appropriateness of our program for the student, a sense
of how the child will fit in with the rest of the group, parental
support for CTL’s curriculum and a willingness to be
involved and provide assistance, an anticipation that the
child will be here through eighth grade, and space availability.
We accept siblings when possible. We also try to achieve some
balance in the ratio of boys to girls and to provide tuition
assistance to the greatest extent possible.
We accept
applications for grades K-8 year-round and continuously add
to our applicant pool in the event that a student should move
or withdraw. When a space becomes available, whether during
the summer or school year, we contact wait-listed families
at that time to schedule visits and interviews; then the faculty
meets to consider candidates and make enrollment decisions.
CTL
is a school for regular kids. This means we do not seek gifted
children, those who will be “easy” to teach, or
children who have particular approaches to learning or privileged
backgrounds; however, CTL lacks the financial resources to
provide a special education teacher, tutor, or separate program
for children who may require such services. CTL admits students
of any race, color, national, and ethnic origin to all the
rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded
or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate
on the basis of race, color, national, and ethnic origin in
administration of its educational policies, admissions policies,
scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other school-administered
programs.
The
CTL faculty believes that key elements of our
program can provide a realistic alternative for teachers who
are seeking more effective models for teaching and being with
children and for collaborating with colleagues and parents.
CTL faculty work with teachers from other schools in an internship
program. Interning teachers apply to spend a week at CTL.
They observe the methods and structures developed by our faculty,
then develop a plan for change in their own schools. Interning
teachers do not teach CTL students. Thus far CTL has welcomed interns
from schools in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Washington, D.C., Wisconsin, Canada, Ecuador, England, and India.
The Center also sponsors one-day conferences for educators
in cities across the U.S.; sites have included Aurora, Colorado; Mesquite, Texas; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Garden Grove and San Jose, California; St. Louis, Omaha, Bangor and Portland, Maine; Boston, Holyoke, Beverly, Randolph, and Westborough, Massachusetts; Tampa and Orlando, Florida; Buffalo and Rochester, New York; Chicago, Willowbrook, and Oak Brook, Illinois; Pittsburgh; Princeton; Washington, D.C.; Denver; Richmond; Cleveland; Baltimore; Charlotte; Ann Arbor; Athens and Atlanta, Georgia; Stamford, Connecticut; St. Louis; Nashville; and Omaha.
119
Cross Point Road
Edgecomb, Maine 04556
Phone: 207-882-9706 Fax: 207-882-6413
Contact: info@c-t-l.org |
