The Vision of Mark Twain Academies

"That education is not an affair of 'telling' and being told, but an active construction process is a principle almost as generally violated in practice as conceded in theory." John Dewey, preeminent U.S. educational reformer

Schools should be about success, not failure. The primary underlying philosophy of the Academies rests upon five major concepts. The first is that all students do not learn at the same rate. A second is that students should learn what they want to learn when they are ready to learn it. The third concept is that students can learn academic subjects better when motivation and interest is generated by membership in academies. The fourth concept is that the only true learning is self-learning. The fifth concept is that students should be able to become experts in their academies through project-based learning combined with hands-on experience involving mentors and internships in partnership with the community.

It is axiomatic that all students do not learn at the same rate. Yet nearly every school in the country violates this fundamental principle. We cram students into square boxes and coax them to complete lessons at the same rate as if the ability levels of the students were all exactly the same. It defies reason. Some students are lost, some are bored, and the needs of the majority are not met. This is the reality of what happens in classrooms across America. Public education is failing, and yet few conventional schools seem willing to change this fundamental flaw. To do so would be to change the concept of school as it presently exists. This is exactly what the Mark Twain Academies believes is necessary.

Students need to learn at a pace that matches their abilities in each subject area. Some students are methodical plodders but are able to master material with a high degree of competence. Other students like to race ahead, jumping from topic to topic. These students often go over the material three or four times during the same time frame in which the plodders go over it once. This does not make one method better than another method. It means that students have different rates of learning and styles. Schools must be willing to accommodate these needs.

Students should have a relatively high degree of control over what they learn. Some students might not be ready to do algebra until they are sophomores or juniors in high school. To classify these students as slow or non-college track is just plain wrong. Suddenly, when these students are ready, they race away and are puzzled at how they ever found the subject inaccessible. Albert Einstein was just such a student.

Students should not be forced to learn "on demand." If a student feels like reading a novel for an entire day, if they are absorbed by the conflict and can't put it down, why would we want them to? If a student wants to race ahead in mathematics to the exclusion of everything else for a while, this is not a bad thing. This is part of human nature-our interests and desires occur in cycles, with peaks and valleys. To shuffle students from room-to-room, subject-to-subject does not make sense given what we know about learning.

Students should learn a central body of academic knowledge in the four core areas of mathematics, science, English, and social studies. Yet this should provide the foundation of an education-education itself should consist of what students will use in their everyday lives. To quote Aristotle: "Education is what remains after what has been learned is forgotten." The Academies intends to raise the academic standards for our school much higher than the expectations that exist in the other schools in the district. In order to motivate students to achieve these high standards, there will be two changes. Each academy will connect the theme of the academy to the academic standards that must be learned. If a student attends the Law Academy, history, math, science, and English will all be studied from the perspective of a law student, connecting each of these areas to law and our system of justice whenever possible. In addition, students will be able to work on strictly academy projects, but only when they have achieved their academic goals for the week. This might take a day or two, or it might take the entire week. The Academies believes that the motivation of wanting more time in the individual academies will provide the motivation necessary to raise the bar of performance in the academic areas.

"The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives. (Robert M. Hutchins) Someone can explain something, can show us how to do it, and can talk about the theories behind it all day, but until we actually "put our hands on it," it doesn't become part of our knowledge base. The most effective type of instruction that exists is when a great teacher helps a student discover something on her own. This epiphany, this moment of discovery, is the magic of learning that has been removed from many of our schools. The Mark Twain Academies believes that the key to revitalizing this fundamental aspect of education is through self-instruction with teachers helping students one-on-one.

Some students don't ever attend college, many attend for a while and don't continue. A high school has an obligation to provide students with tools for life. Some students should be able to graduate from high school and be able to build a house, repair a car, program a computer, or many other useful endeavors. Not just fix a car in the sense of changing the oil or spark plugs, but really fix a car, really build a house.

Students who attend our academies will partner with mentors and will serve in internship programs in partnership with businesses and individuals in the community. For example, automotive technology students might spend several months working in a transmission repair facility before transferring to a brake repair facility. An art student might spend months working with a watercolor artist before spending additional months with a painter who specializes in oil. We believe a community should play an intricate role in the education of the youth that will then want to spend a lifetime here. Santa Maria will become their home in the truest sense of the word.

We want our graduates to be ready for life the minute they graduate because for some of them, high school may be the only formal preparation they will ever receive. We believe that students must learn how to be good citizens, good workers, good friends, good parents, and, most importantly, good people. These are not things contained in the standards of an algebra textbook. School must provide more.