Students Know What Makes a Good School (VIDEO)

By on November 2, 2010 in Healthy Living

 Urban Academy, located in Midtown Manhattan is a public school. As their tag line says, it’s a small school with big ideas.

The building is old, but feels like home with comfy albeit old couches and cozy student gathering places. The teachers skip teaching to the test in order to engage students in genuine inquiry based learning that challenges their thinking. Many of the students failed at other large, urban public schools, and now find success at Urban Academy. 

Some of the students travel over an hour each way every day from as far as the Brooklyn public housing projects to attend Urban Academy. Students at Urban love their school, take pride in their education and want to succeed. The model at Urban can be replicated without pouring millions and millions of dollars into a fancy new environment — although these students deserve as much. What is so special about Urban Academy? Listen to the students speak in their own words. What do you think makes a great school? 

 

Photo: CC Flickr//Dean Terry

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About jenifer.fox

Jenifer Fox, author of Your Child's Strengths: A Guide for Parents and Teachers, is an educator and public speaker who has worked in public and independent schools as a teacher and administrator for twenty-five years. She is currently the international leader of the Strengths Movement in K-12 schools. She holds a B.S. in communication from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an M.A. in English from Middlebury College's Bread Loaf School of English, and an M.Ed. in school administration from Harvard University.

For more information, please visit www.strengthsmovement.com

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