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Small Schools and Race
VUE Number 2, Fall 2003
An interview with Warren Simmons,  Audio Clip 1
Executive Director, Annenberg Institute for School Reform
How can small schools address issues of race and ethnicity more effectively?
Click on the  bar below to start the audio.
TEXT VERSION:
I think one of the most important things is recognizing that when we talk about small learning communities education reformers often consider the nature of the community inside of the school as consisting of teachers, teams of teachers working together with groups of students. What they often aren't as explicit about is how you link the community inside the school with the community outside the school, recognizing that the adult community inside the school can differ remarkably, in terms of their economic background, race, and ethnic background, with the community served by a small school. And creating relationships between the school community and the adult community served by the school along with students is critical for several reasons.
Number one, it allows educators to give a fuller understanding of the values and perspectives of the adult community as they make an effort to know their students well. In order to know students well you've got to know not only something about the values and perspectives of the individual students but you have to know something about the community in which they live.
That means forming relationships with not just parents, but community organizations, understanding the context of the community, the housing situation, parks and recreation, as well as the way in which people see the school as a potential anchor for the community's identity, social and economic development, and factoring that into the design of the school itself, but also into the internship experiences, field experiences, and the themes that the teachers organize the curriculum to focus on.
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